Full meeting transcript - June 14, 2022

» it's a great day in kershaw county all-american county we the people uh can celebrate today uh democracy in action we can also celebrate the army birthday for those of you who are army uh we are celebrating that at the burns household when i get home tonight maybe i can get some sleep too we're called to order with everybody present and i ask you all to stand and ben connell will lead us in the invocation and pledge of allegiance let's pray dear only father we're thankful for our our many blessings. We're grateful to be here today, and we pray for thy guidance and wisdom. We recognize that we are weak and imperfect, and we pray for humility in thy spirit as we try to make decisions that benefit this county.

» We pray for those that mourn and struggle, that they might be lifted up and have peace and comfort that passes all understanding through thee. We pray for those who put themselves in harm's way to serve and lift up others, and we say these things in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen. Amen. Thank you very much indeed. I'm going to do a little surgery with the agenda when we get to adoption of the agenda. But the first one has to do with the two public presentations you see on the screen.

» We have two of those, one for the 250th commission which i'm looking forward to and then secondly the item number two chief you and i talked about this today uh we'll move that later on with the concurrence of the and suggestion of the county council to item number one under new business when we get to that item under amendment of the agenda so i'm taking a chairman's prerogative just to not do a public presentation on lfd until the appropriate time and the battalion chief has asked me to do that so with that let's go to the first item which is south carolina 250th commission mr carpenter can you help us out here mr chair members council uh as you are probably aware kershaw county played a significant role in the events of roughly 250 years ago and the state of south carolina has decided th

» at the state we're going to recognize the 250th anniversary of the American Revolution and so the 250th Commission was created they have asked to be here tonight in order to make a presentation to the County Council very good and typically we take about 15 minutes for this so if you can leave some time for questions that would be helpful thank you absolutely I'm Molly fortune I am bring the microphone down to ground level they are welcome I'm not that sure welcome thank you I am Molly fortune I'm the executive director of the South Carolina sister Centennial Commission that is a mouthful I actually am here on behalf of the commissioners to give mr.

» carpenter a commendation he has served dutifully for this commission and has brought it from the ground to where it is and has been an integral part of creating what we have today which is a very strong foundation to continue forward with the work of the Commission I do hope to be back and present to the County Council on more of what Kershaw County is going to do but right now and read if you will this commendation and I will have to say the word sister Centennial twice in recognition of extraordinary service and leadership to the American Revolutionary Centennial Commission of the State of South Carolina, the commissioners wish to thank Mr. Vic Carpenter for his extraordinary service. Mr.

» Carpenter is a South Carolina native, graduating from the University of South Carolina with a degree in Management and Labor Relations. Mr. Carter has served both the United States and the State of South Carolina with distinction, with service to the Boy Scouts of America, to his public service career with Anderson County as the Director of Environmental Services, and then to the position of Assistant County Administrator for Environmental Services. Further, while serving the citizens of South Carolina as County Manager of Greenwood County, Interim Director of Abbeville County, and finally serving as the County Administrator of Kershaw County. Mr.

» Carpenter's service to the citizens of South Carolina has earned him two Mitchell Graham Awards for Innovative County Government, as well as three Barrett-Lattimore Regional Cooperation Awards. while serving in Anderson and Kershaw counties, both received the All-American City Award, respectively. Mr. Carpenter's outstanding dedication to public service and promotion of the state of South Carolina is most evident in his service as a commissioner on the South Carolina Revolution Centennial Commission, his service and leadership as the commission treasurer, and through his work has been integral in propelling the entire commission into the spotlight, always promoting the history of the revolution to all persons within the state.

» The entire South Carolina Revolution Sester Centennial Commission is grateful for the contributions, conversations, and insight Mr. Carpenter has provided to the overall recognition and celebration of the events of the Revolutionary Era within the state of South Carolina. His dedication to serving all populations throughout the state is exemplary, and the Commission is grateful for his volunteer service. The South Carolina Revolution Sester Centennial Commission extends gratitude for these hours of service, insight, and leadership to Mr. Carpenter, and his name is forever linked to the history and service of South Carolina. Agreed and executed on June 10th by all members. Signed, Charles Beck. Charles could not be here. In the 18th century, we do a huzzah.

» Huzzah! So kippin! Huzzah! Huzzah! Kippin! Huzzah! Why don't you come up here for a photo op real quick? And as you're doing that, I want to steal a march on this. During the Revolution, cavalry soldiers wore what was called a gorget, which protected what is the throat. In French, gorget is throat, all right? So me and Vic have been talking long about that. And the gorget was worn like this to protect the cavalry soldier from a sword thrust from the ground. and I have made one up for you, from the Revolutionary War, because after the Revolutionary War, those who fought as officers in the Revolution would wear this to dinner parties as their badge of distinction. As you know, in America, there's no meritocracy. There's only those who deserve it by their service to their fellow man.

» And I think I give this to Vic Carpenter. Would you come on up, and we'll get a picture? Is that right? Well, thank you very much indeed. a welcome way to treat a long-serving servant of this county and a very important thing that was near and dear his heart the revolutionary war and celebrating that here in south carolina we move now to the next item having skipped over the lfd budget a public hearing in regards to an ordinance by the kershaw county to amend the uniform unified code of zoning and land development regulations the zldr article 6 right of appeal i'll open the uh public comments uh mr de bose has anybody signed up mr chairman no one signed up okay very good we'll close the uh hearing and move on to public comments mr de bose anybody signed up uh one person signed up david ruer

» but i don't know whether he's already spoken or not no sir it's on a different yeah we fight mr roer um we'll try to keep it to about five minutes go ahead please we fight get beat rise and fight again that's the watchwords of the southern campaigns of the american revolution i'm here tonight just to speak on behalf of a later agenda item for your consideration of the lease of the battlefield camden battlefield not the battle site or battle of or park it's camden battlefield for the 900 acres that will eventually be there. I'm with the South Carolina Battleground Trust, which will be the county's partner in interpretation, in infrastructure, in management of the park, and it's really exciting.

» So what I want you to remember is this is the South Carolina Revolutionary flag, one of them, and it spells liberty, which is freedom coupled with responsibility, And Liberty has these three words, the letters in them. E stands for economic development. More people spend more money in Kershaw County looking at historic properties or traditional than other places, twice as much. The R in Liberty stands for recreational. We want people to walk their dogs, walk their wives, walk around a battlefield, look at the stars in the early evening. It's recreational source for a battlefield.

» and then finally the t stands for tourism we are the same size as gettysburg pennsylvania 7 800 people the city the city we get 35 to 45 000 visitors a year gettysburg gets 2 million people because of the battlefield although anything works at gettysburg when it gets 2 million people through it so keep that in mind economic development recreation and tourism as you as you consider this resolution this evening. And I encourage you to accept that resolution because the South Carolina Battleground Preservation Trust, as you already know, all of you know, we're already working out there to put in some of the infrastructure and it is part of the Liberty Trail. So, you know, the motto has been simply revolutionary.

» Well, there's nothing simple about a revolution, but what we encourage you is to become revolutionary, Be revolutionary, and your taking over this lease on the battlefield of Camden will have a great economic benefit to the county of Kershaw County. And I wanted to leave, Mr. Chairman, with your permission, a copy of where it fits into the Liberty Trail for each one of the commissioners, as well as one of the cards of the general who gave his life, Baron de Cobb, there. And that's the kind of thing we're putting out. Thank you very much for the opportunity to speak with you. Thank you very much indeed. That was terrific. Bizarre. With that, we move to an adoption of the agenda.

» We're going to look for an amendment to move the Lugar Fire Department to item number one under new business, and Mr. Tucker will look for an amendment to add a resolution immediately after the recreation master plan can we have such a motion mr chairman like to make an amendment to the agenda to add a proclamation recognizing mr vick carpenter into and be inserted into new business on the after recreation master plan okay can we have a second second that was mr brazel uh any discussion okay none needed uh let's move to a vote and then we'll get the second amendment all those in favor signify and it's unanimous and do we have another amendment to move the lugo fire department at the pixel move uh mr gardner is second second second from mr trucker discussion only i would say again that was a

» t the request of the chief uh saying that he would like to um to brief us officially and uh and then we'll move on uh to a subsequent discussion about that uh with that let's move to a motion to approve all those in favor signify and it's unanimous and can we have a motion to approve the two amendments make a motion to approve the amended agenda uh it's uh first mr tucker a second second mr gardner and no discussion necessarily let's move quickly to a vote all those in favor signify and the agenda is amended we'll move now to approval of minutes with mr tucker absent can we have a motion to approve It's at page 12, it's at tab B, and it's up on the screen. I move. Mr. Gardner, a second? Second. Mr. Brazel, any discussion? Mr. Chairman, once again, I will be abstaining from my absence.

» Very good, and notice this was where we did our first reading, title only of the budget. With that, we move to a vote. All those in favor signify, and it's unanimous with Mr. Tucker abstaining. we move now to a resolution uh item number one it's a tab c it's page 16 uh if you'll move up there a resolution directing kershaw county planning commission to conduct studies required for the consideration of a local government development impact fee uh for south carolina under the south carolina law uh mr carpenter as usual you need to explain what we have here Mr.

» Chair, members of council, as you recall, the council has directed staff to begin the process of doing the research necessary to provide the county council information they would need to determine if or not they would impose an impact fee. State law requires that a resolution then from the council be issued to direct the planning commission to start that study. So you have in front of you tonight that resolution that would direct the Kershaw County Planning Commission to engage in a study, which will be the result to be returned ultimately to the county council for consideration and discussion.

» okay I'll read the resolution and ask for a motion resolution and title is already outlined whereas Kershaw County a body politic and political subdivision of the state of South Carolina has adopted a comprehensive plan as provided in chapter 29 of carrying South Carolina Code whereas Kershaw County by and through its County Council is authorized by the South Carolina Development Impact Fee Act to initiative a process whereby Kershaw County Planning Commission, the commission, may conduct studies and recommend an impact fee ordinance developed in accordance with the requirements of a title and chapter under the South Carolina Code, whereas the county finds As a geographic area of unincorporated Kershaw County has experienced and continues to experience rapid growth and development, which wi

» ll continue into the near future due to vested but yet unbuilt development approvals as well as other future development, whereas the county continues to experience direct impacts of this growth on the demand for public facilities, and whereas the costs associated with land acquisition, construction, and equipping of public facilities necessitated by anticipated growth and development are significant and expensive, and whereas the county may wish for future residential and non-residential development, an unincorporated Kershaw County to fund new public facilities eligible for impact fee funding in part through a proportionate share of an impact fee as may be permitted by the south carolina act now therefore be it resolved by the kershaw county council duly assembled that the commission is h

» ereby directed to conduct the required studies and provide a recommendation to kershaw county council as to whether to establish a development impact fee ordinance in conformity with south carolina code and the Kershaw County Planning and Zoning Director or his designee shall act as liaison with any consultants or county personnel who may have been tasked to date or who may be asked tasked in the future to assist in the performance of requirements incident to the study and recommendations of whether to establish a developmental impact fee including but limited to but not limited to the performance of any required review analysis and study the generation of any required plans and reports and the structuring of the recommended ordinance it is the intent of council that the commission shall co

» mplete its assigned task with a recommendation within four months or as soon as possible thereafter the county administrator and all other appropriate officials and employees are hereby authorized to execute deliver and receive Any agreements and documents and perform such tasks as may be required by the county or commission in order to carry out, give effect to, and consummate the study and recommendation of the development of an impact fee ordinance. This resolution shall be construed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the state.

» This resolution shall become effective immediately and upon approval by the council, and the provisions of this resolution is hereby declared to be severable, and if any section, phrase, or provision shall for any reason be declared by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, that declaration shall not affect the validity of the remainder.

» copy this resolution shall be delivered now with that can we have a motion to approve make a motion that we approve mr chairman mr tucker a second second mr gardner i would just say that it's been the will of the council to do this and as recommended by the ad hoc committee led by mr connell and mr brazel and mr gardner with that um i open for discussion who had the first on that mr tucker i just want to say that i appreciate um my colleagues support and of course vic and staff of getting this done along with the planning commission um this would you know allow us to see where we're at um on trying to make sure that we develop kershaw county in a responsible way as um this growth continues to attack us uh from the west so um i appreciate all of you guys who are supporting this other comment

» s mr chairman yes sir just for the public's benefit i i would say that this is a statutory requirement the study so unless it gets done we can't actually consider an impact fee as a solution or tool in addressing some of the gross issues in kershaw county thank you mr chairman other comments if i may yeah mr jones some clarification to the uh so the ad hoc committee appointed by the chairman recommended this for us to pass tonight correct yes and we also too jimmy as you may recall we voted on this during the run-up to this go ahead let me ask another question um how is the impact fee going to help us with growth anybody i mean an impact fee in and of itself is not or should not be looked as a tool to manage growth we've made reference to that on this county council just now what an impact

» fee does is it it addresses some of the consequences i understand but it was made reference to to help us control the growth and i'm just saying it's one of many tools mr jones i made the statement so let me answer it um it's it's one of many twos that we can use and this is not really coming from the uh ad hoc committee this is a part of what we assign the administrator and staff to do as ben just stated this is part of the state law that we have to do to get to the next point so that's why it's before us without doing this then we can't ever start to study so no thank you mr tucker you're welcome uh let me just ask i just need some clarification and sometimes it may take me a little bit longer to understand it there's some of you up here um you know we're in some pretty tough times now an

» d a lot of people have been hurting with the inflation the cost of gasoline the cost of food to me an impact fee i don't know how it's going to help at all with any type of growth that we we have totally lost control of here which i think we're all working hard to try to get under control but i think this is a kind of a little bit of a snap to judgment to do this this quick you know the impact fee in my understanding will be passed on to the consumer am i correct on that it's charged to the builder of the house but the builder house is going to charge it to the it's up to the builder how he manages it but i mean i mean usually that's what happened they would do that how much of an impact are we even thinking about mr that's what the study would would determine is is what are the needs of th

» e county so the study would be divided into sections on recreation on public safety on various areas they would study to determine what the impact of growth would be and then what the cost would therefore be to provide the necessary facilities if an impact if you were all this is of the study it's not anything more than a study if the study is completed and the County Council chose to impose these based on the study the fees could only be spent on hard capital items related specifically to those areas that were covered so it would and another aspect of the law is that impact fees when collected must be spent within three years of collecting so an impact fee if it were to be approved by the County Council could only be spent on brick-and-mortar structures that serve those areas of the county

» that were covered by the study and could not be for operations that cannot be used for long-term spending it can only be used for fairly quick expenses like ball fields fire stations ems stations things like that you know it's always good to say ball fields ems stations or you know things like that because that pulls at the heart strings of all the citizens but here's where i have a problem i'm not comfortable with this impact fee study i think we need to slow down look at it a little bit more i wish that the ad hoc committee could have came with something else other than recommending this um if this is the best we can do to try to say we're grabbing some kind of control of our growth which we really can't control we probably never could um i think we're in for a long hard road but uh so we

» pass this tonight it's going to go back to the planning and zoning commission a study would be conducted that would go to the planning and zoning commission they would get the results of the study first you know how much but would you hire somebody to do the study yes sir how much talking several tens of thousands of dollars probably several tens of thousands maybe 20,000 let me ask a question or two if mr.

» Jones is finished well I'm not finished but y'all yield to you to go ahead okay you sure yeah absolutely so the the biggest concern I've had about any kind of an impact fee is how it would impact small builders and personal homeowners have we made any kind of clarity to the folks that we're going to pay that do the study that there's a concern the people who do a study like this are they're going to return to you the results of what they have determined the the impact would be so it's up to the county council to decide if you're going to impose it or not um you know so they've got to follow the law too you know the law that was written by the general assembly governing impact fees is pretty specific what the study has to cover so the study covers those things the law requires to do which is

» if you add X number of people what is that going to result in in demand on services and then that demand on services how would you pay for the necessary capital costs related to those demands on services so that's all their studies going to do is say if we add a thousand people in the next five years this is what the impact will be this is what it would cost it for to build fire stations ems stations whatever whatever the category is and then it'll come back ultimately to the planning commission the county council to decide if if they thought you cannot impose a fee greater than what is required you don't have to impose that you can impose the lower fee if you wish to as well so it sets those parameters of of the ceiling that a fee could be and the categories that you could spend the fee on

» but anything beyond that is up to the decision of the county council but fees by their nature have to hit everybody so the concern of a fee only you've answered my question thank you if they have to hit everybody i can't support it either mr chairman one other caveat the impact fee does not necessarily have to be for all of kershaw county in fact most impact fees only are for the areas impacted but we're not saying that but we're not saying that oh no you're not but i mean you don't know what they're going to come back yeah it would not be the whole county it's not if i might mr chairman yeah go ahead mr jones will you oh well absolutely it's not the time to say that right now yeah because the study has to be done first so the study will tell us whether we can even put one in and where and

» where if it's even possible and then it becomes a tool you can use mr jones to answer one of your earlier questions i'm a little bit slower sometimes too and i have to look through the numbers a lot but one of the things that's been useful for me to consider when uh when i think of the phrase addressing growth is to me that means two things you have to pay for growth if you're going to address it and then you have to reduce the speed in some way to something that's manageable and this is one of the ones i think helps you pay for growth more directly what i was interested in knowing like mr brazel's concern is can it be implemented say it comes back to where it is a tool that we can use in certain areas of the county can it be implemented for only subdivisions that are considered major of a

» certain number or does it have to be every single house in a particular area do we have any idea on that mr debose or mr carpenter you can put limits to the what you are looking to cover but again you can't if you impose a fee on on one category or class of people you have to impose on everybody so you can do a territorial so it could only be for example in this particular part of the county but if the fee is a thousand dollars a house then it's going to be a thousand dollars for every new house that's constructed not existing homes but new homes that are constructed so whatever the fee is determined to be you can you can control the shape of it but you can't control how much it is at the or who's impacted within that territory so is it possible to define large tracts that are highly likely

» to be you can't like what do you mean by an area can be defined you could do a geographic area like you know west water rebounded by the water river i-20 things like that or um you can do pre-um you know zoning categories you know zoning tracks things like that so you can have specific territory that is is covered by the study but again within that territory you can't have different classes of people okay well one of the issues with gross growth is it outstrips its ability to pay for itself and so this seems like it's one of the tools that we could consider for paying for growth So I would support getting the study done, and then we'll see what the results are as to whether or not we can use it in Kershaw County wisely. If I may. Yeah, Mr. Jones. You know, we talk about to sustain growth.

» You know, when we have growth, it's a double-edged sword. The value of our millage goes up. And I think there's no finer example of that than the Lugolf Fire Department when they came to us one year. And I don't know if it was Chief Spitzer or Chief Ray that said, we're not going to have to ask you for an increase tonight because the growth has increased our millage to where we have more revenue. And so, I mean, that in itself also generates revenue. I just think personally, guys, and I've got to go with my heart, I've got to go with my gut, and I just think this resolution is too open-ended. I think it's just not confined enough for me. Mr.

» Carpenter, who put this on the agenda? our county council asked me to county council yes a vote was taken but the council asked me to do this okay well anyway i've returned it to the county council as you requested we asked you to get a resolution together no i state law requires that there's going to be an impact study there has to be this resolution i understand but so if there's my question is asked to to to begin the process this is the first legal step of the process the council has to do well i certainly certainly want you to look into everything like i did with the land use ordinance to make it more user-friendly to the citizens and get somebody running planning a zoning that can that can relate to our citizens and not make them feel like they're they're a burden on when they come in

» there and that has happened many many many many times and uh i think your your new appointee is doing a great job so far and i'm very appreciative of that you know we had we work for the citizens you know to me we shouldn't be rude or be you know uh complacent with them and and that has happened and that's gonna stop and i think we've all indicated about what we've been doing but going back to the resolution i don't think we asked you to bring us a resolution we may have asked you to look into the situation am i correct i don't have the exact wording in front of me mr jones but i was completely of the guidance that the county council wanted me to begin the process of doing a a study and this is the first step of the study a study doesn't commit anything to happen when i was mentioned that t

» he the wonderful job of the 24 person ad hoc committee uh recommended this let me just uh jimmy let's make sure we go back to that i think that question's been answered by mr tucker mr talker can you answer that question yes sir we we voted majority of council up here voted to uh have uh the impact fee study done by mr carpenter and staff and as i stated earlier this is part of the process now wherever we take that study and do nothing with it or do something this is part of what we've already authorized him to bring back to council so we can know these questions that we're asking up here which are many and get answers and then we will decide as a body wherever we move forward with the study or without the study so i'm i'm getting confused on why is this so hard because we've asked staff to

» do something and they brought it back and maybe everybody don't agree with it but it wasn't a unanimous vote when we gave him the authority to bring this back to us so if i may finish yes sir thank you um well i just don't remember asking him to go bring us no pun intended a resolution that's going to cost us tens of thousands of dollars it's open-ended and it's it's hard i think it's it's wide open anything can happen you know it takes me back to when um i was sitting on council with you mr tucker back in 2007 when we were discussing a special purpose district i asked a question are y'all going to do a tax no no no no we're not going to do a tax we're just going to have it there in case we need it i knew better than that anyway we had a tax within three months after the adoption of it now

» what it is related to what we're doing here tonight there's no doubt in my mind that this is the first step to go ahead and automatically do an impact fee impact fee i know y'all say no but but that's just my belief and and i'm not upset i'm not angry with anybody i you know trying to be as nice as i can as humble as i can be where you know you don't take these questions personally but but i'm going to ask the questions and i'm going to stick to what i think is right and i think when we've just been through what we've been through everybody's not as fortunate as some folks who have businesses that do very well some people have really struggled the last couple years really struggled and i think that any kind of fee at this moment especially when it's not going to to control growth it's not g

» oing to help us with the growth if we say it is that is a misgiven in my book anyway i'm done with that we can move on or if somebody else can try thank you mr johnson go ahead yeah and mr jones i don't necessarily like impact fees either but it's a tool and that's that's what we were looking at on the ad hoc committee tools that could help uh not necessarily control growth although we were looked at a number of those things too but what an impact fee will do as mr connell said it will help pay for some of those things because we all know we're talking where the growth is in west water re uh but when that growth occurs and i don't know if we can control it either i i agree with you i'm not sure either we have a tool that could control it other than some of our zoning and not rezone some pro

» perties but when that growth occurs and we have to build a new ems ems station a new fire station new ball fields or or public works whatever we have out there and that cost goes up that cost goes to the entire county so you're going because these impact fees would help cover those costs we're not going to be raising taxes on people in bethune because of the growth in west watery so i think that's what an impact fee would do it would help pay for those things uh the brick and mortar things that come with growth so i don't know that it's the answer but it would offset those costs where taxes would not go up because you know when growth comes services go up so um i i just think that we we need to look at the study and then determine and we'll determine what the impact fee will be or whether w

» e'll have one or not so i'll support the study if i'm mrs snaggrass do you have anything to say yeah thank you mr chair uh i would just kind of add a lot of good questions here tonight but i feel like we're asking questions that need to be asked after this study comes back we're making stances and we're we're getting on our soap boxes about where we stay on impact fees and that's that's all well and good but from what I see I think we this is a not this is an ability for us to kind of put all the all the ideas on the table kind of pull out all the toolboxes and see okay what what tools can we use is at our disposal uh to to manage growth and probably manage is probably the best word we talk about growth i think growth is coming and so i think when you use the word control growth probably ta

» lk about managing growth so growth is going to happen but how do we manage it in such a way that it doesn't it doesn't impede our ability for public safety to provide recreation opportunities and things of of that nature so i'm going to support this tonight only because this is just the first step to pull the pull the toolboxes out of the garage and see okay what can we do and then the next after the study comes back then that's the appropriate time to really ask a lot of the questions and get into a lot of the debate uh that we've gotten into um this evening so i i'll support this just so because the last four years that i've been on council uh we've been in work sessions and impact fees always come up and we always ask questions and the mystery always says well that's something that we'll

» find out in the study well that's something that we got to do a study first and then we can find that out so there's a lot of questions that we all have but from what I understand we've got to get that study first so that we can fully understand how that will impact this study may come back and we may realize it's it's not it's not a good tool for Kershaw County but we first got at least take a look at it so i would make a ruling here as a chairman we did indeed vote to ask mr carpenter to do this so it wasn't not to do the resolution sir oh yeah to have the resolution come in that's no we did not excuse me mr jones i didn't recognize you there well quit but the point here is is we voted as a council to ask him to bring in the resolution and so now we have a resolution in front of us and i'

» m ready to call the question unless there's a closing argument here anybody got any further points mr. John thank you mr. chairman it sounds like we already got the money spent thank you okay with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand mr. mrs. nagras mr. excuse me I got a bit mr. Tucker mr. Gardner mr. Burns mr. Russell and mr. Connell those opposed mr.

» Jones and the motion passes let's proceed with that I don't Tucker thank you for your clarification i do look forward to seeing what it reveals yes although i may not be in favor of it i do look to and i told you i mean let's close that discussion gentlemen thank you item number two is uh under resolutions a resolution by the county authorizing the execution of a recreational lease for the historic battlefield site with the camden historic camden foundation it said tab d it's page 18 in your electronic book let me turn to that and i'll read it and we'll follow the same procedure uh gentlemen also for your information a map is on page 20 in the electronic book okay i'll read it an enabling resolution by the kershaw county council authorizing the execution of a recreational lease for the hist

» oric battlefield with historic camden foundation whereas the foundation hereafter named hcf is organized and operates for charitable and educational purposes within the meaning of the internal revenue code and whereas the purpose of hcf historic camden foundation is the acquisition protection publication preservation and restoration for historical educational cultural and recreational purposes of the area of historical importance including the site of historic camden and all historic data and artifacts structures pertaining to its museum functions as well as operate and maintain the camden battlefield and the longleaf pine preserve whereas it is empowered to accept gifts and public appropriations and to cooperate and contract with the public and private agencies and individuals for those pu

» rposes Whereas it is the owner of 476 acres, more or less, located on Flat Rock Road, which is known as the Camden Battlefield and Longleaf Pine Preserve, where the Revolutionary War Battle of Camden took place. And whereas Kershaw County is a body politic and corporate and a political subdivision of the state of South Carolina, whereas the county council is a duly constituted governing body, and whereas Kershaw County wants to partner with HCF and utilize the county's resources to establish a battlefield site to be maintained and marketed for recreational educational purposes with said activities to include but by not limited to the creation operation of a battlefield site to include trails signage interpretation panels monuments parking restroom facilities merchandising facilities and pre

» servation activities in conjunction and consultation with historic camden and its historic preservation partners and stakeholders including the american battlefield trust the south carolina battleground preservation trust the palmetto conservation foundation and the catawba valley land trust whereas kershaw county and hcf desire to enter into a recreational lease a historic battlefield uh here too is exhibit a which i says page 20 and incorporated herein in order to establish a battlefield site pursuant to the terms therein whereas the establishment operation and maintenance of a battlefield site is a benefit to the citizens of kershaw county and the public purpose now therefore be it resolved the county council approves and ratifies the terms and conditions of the recreational lease to the

» limitations of availability of funds in the kershaw county operating and capital budget county council appropriations and the expenditure of said funds authorizes and directs the chair of kershaw county council and and or the administrator to take whatever further actions ex and execute whatever uh further documents including the recreational lease and reasonably necessary prudent to effectuate the intent of this resolution and authorizes and directs the administrator to take all reasonable reasonably necessary actions to establish maintain and operate the battlefield site in concurrence with the terms of this resolution etc uh with that can we have a a motion to approve so move mr chair mr snodgrass a second second of mr gardner a discussion mr snodgrass thank you uh i've been looking forw

» ard to uh to this for quite some time now as i know i know there's been conversation about this and i think it's a neat opportunity for us as council to take a part in continuing to preserve uh just the rich history uh that is here in kershaw county i'm not gonna say our history books are were wrong but they didn't always tell the total perspective the Revolutionary War and the southern campaign that the role that something campaign played in the Revolutionary War and I think this is a great opportunity for us to to tap into tourism historical tourism this is something of interest we have a great story to tell and I love how mr. mr. Ruer always you know says that the birth certificate of the country may be Lexington Concord but the labor delivery room was right here in South Carolina.

» And I love being able to be a part of telling that story. Thank you. Second, Mr. Gardner. I think this is a really good thing. The only question I have, what would the county's cost be pertaining to this? Mr. Gardner, we would maintain the property, so cutting grass, things like that, with resources we have. We've already put one ranger on the staff, if you recall, about a year and a half ago. And so there would be incidental cost to maintaining it. The American Battlefield Trust, South Carolina Battlefield Trust, I should say, is investing in preparing the site, building facilities there. They have fundraised private funds to come in, and so they'll be investing a significant amount of money into the property. Thank you. So this is a no-cost lease? No, correct.

» We are not paying anything for this lease. Okay, thank you. Other comments? If I may. Mr. Jones. Did Mr. Rule leave? I had something I want to say to him? He's not here. Okay. Well, it was good. I think he does a great job. I appreciate what he does. And I've known David for many, many, many years, and he's very passionate. I have members of my family that are also very passionate about this same thing. And this is a great opportunity for us. And Mr. Carpenter, the way this is written, you will be in control of making sure that it's administered, correct? Yes, sir. With no interference from up here? It is the administrator, because it would be an operational issue.

» correct but okay i just want to make sure we have no where members of council can get involved and try to make it a little bit more complicated for you does it fall under parks and rec and it'll be part of our we need to stay out of your business unless we have business with you thank you other comments wait a minute i'm not through i'm sorry go ahead and and i just want to say thank you vick you've done a good job appreciate it i don't mean to sound rude mr chairman other comments I fully support this. It's a great idea. This is an amazing opportunity for us to help others tell our story by the simple maintenance of a very valuable piece of property. And there are bodies still buried on that ground. They were sacred blood lost in a revolutionary war that we're still finding.

» So with that, we move to a vote. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. and it's unanimous thank you very much who's uh okay we move now to a series of ordinances third reading of an ordinance to amend the kershaw county unified unified code of zoning and land development regulations it's at tab e on the board it's at page 82 in your electronics if you want to turn all the way back there uh mr carpenter can you explain what we have here we'll move in the chairman of council have in front of you tonight on third reading and ordinance uh that would amend the um kershaw county code of zoning and land development the zldr articles uh modified the uh the process for the right to appeal council has previously uh had this uh and approved it on the previous two votes very good can we hav

» e a motion to approve make a motion that we approve mr chairman mr tucker a second second uh mr gardner discussion tucker i'm sorry um no i I just want to tell Vic and staff again, thank you for working on these issues that we're trying to get straight in our planning and zoning department so we can better and be more consistent when it comes down to people, you know, requesting different zonings and knowing what our policies and rules are, and everything's consistent and coincide. So, thank you. Second, please. I just agree with Mr. Tucker. Anything that would make that department run easier, I think that's good. other comments mr. chairman yeah mr.

» Connell one of the most useful aspects I think of this particular change lands appeals in front of us as opposed to quarter or some other body that would make a decision on it so they come before us I really appreciate that other comments if I may John mr. Jones this carpet when I asked you to in council supported to put this on the agenda and go to work on it I think mr. Brazel I did actually exactly what does this do to help I want to put it on the record for a third read what does this do to help ease the burden of the citizens when they go to planning and zoning as mr.

» Connell said it in the appeal process it puts the County Council in the as the arbiter for the appeals previously it would go to a court so it makes it easier simpler and obviously less expensive for someone who does not agree with the decision of the staff or the board of zoning appeals so So it gives the county council a role to play they did not have. Thank you. Other comments? Mr. Snodgrass. Sorry. Mr. Carpenter, so the zoning board of appeals, does that still have a place in our? Yes, sir. It would still, any appeals would go from staff to the BZA. That would still be the same. Okay. And if someone didn't like what the board of appeals decided, then it would, we would be the secondary board of appeals. Instead of going to circuit court.

» Is that right? No, I'm talking about planning and zoning commission. But if an appeal were to go past that before this, it would have had to have gone to circuit court. Is that correct? Well, there's a statute that requires that. Circuit court is always the final arbiter of everything. That still remains. But it puts county council in the process. They were not in the process before. One step ahead of circuit court. So, clarify simple terms. It gives county council the ability to overturn decisions. Thank you. I appreciate that very much. Good points. Thank you. And that does not end what we have begun back in January and February with the rewrite of the comp plan and the zoning laws that we have. And that should have begun already. All right, let's move to a vote.

» All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. And it's unanimous. Thank you very much, Vic. It was a long process, well concluded. With that, we move to item number two in the ordinances. It's on page 84 in your electronic book, tab F. It's up on the screen. Third reading of an ordinance enacting and establishing a special property tax assessment program for rehabilitated historic property. We seem to be having a theme about history. It's known as the Bailey Bill. Mr. Carpenter, can you bring us on board? Mr. Chairman, members of council, you have in front of you tonight for third reading the bill that is referred to normally as the Bailey Bill. Council has previously approved this on two previous readings. Okay. Can we have a motion to approve? Make a motion, Mr. Chair.

» Thank you, Mr. Connell. A second. Mr. Chairman, could I ask Mr. Connell, as part of his motion, to include the IGA, which is attached to it and a part of the ordinance? Did it be approved also? Yeah, I was including that in my motion already. Thank you. To make it a part of the minutes, though. Yes, sir. And that's it. The IGA is in your electronic package right behind this. The document is 84, and the IGA is page 93. Okay, can we have a second? Second. All right, very good. Mr. Connell, lead us off. Yes, Mr. Chairman. Council, we've talked about this multiple times. The delay or time that's passed since last time we spoke about it on a second reading involved reaching an IGA with City of Camden. You have to have a reviewing authority under the statute. It could be the state archives.

» But we were not suspect, but a little curious about how that would exactly work and how responsive they would be. Based on Mr. Carpenter and Mr. DeBose's advice and counsel, looks like we may have found a better solution with city of camden they process these fairly regularly not in huge number but they process them regularly and they have a must mr putnam is that right on staff who is certified certified and educated in these matters he's able to go through and provide the certification that's required to pass on the beta bill so the salient points for me under this ordinance for our consideration city of camden would be the uh the approved reviewing authority we're talking about properties that are 50 years old or older have some historic significance and county council can actually desig

» nate those properties as one of the criteria the minimum investment requirement is 20 of the market value at the time it can be much more but it can't be less than that to be eligible for this the time period is 15 years for the tax benefit and again the result is if you are qualifying property and you get approved your tax rate the real property tax rate gets frozen at that pre-investment rate so if it's some low rate that you would have on a property that was decrepit yet historic and you wanted to improve it and make this historic property beautiful again and turn it into something that's great for the community maybe open a business even if it's open to the public you could have your property tax rate frozen at that low rate for 15 years significant savings over a long period of time so

» i think this is a good idea i think we've we've gone through all the hoops we needed to mr debose to make sure we had the right reviewing authority and as i understand it city of camden is not charging any fee this first fiscal year and they may not in the future they just want to see what the volume is is that right yes they're not charging any because they don't think the volume is going to merit it okay they think they have enough staff in place already including their landmark commission to review them so they're not charging a fee so the city's working with us on this yes thank you mr chairman and mr but kind of be real clear your motion is to approve it as amended with the iga correct that is an amendment that's correct okay other comments yes mr jones let's talk about some facts i vo

» ted against this the first two times y'all remember that remember anyway i voted against the first two times of course after getting with ben connell and mr uh carpenter i felt like i was not happy about the deep hole over in columbia that this would fall into because one they didn't want it in columbia but of course they would have been mandated to do it so i mentioned to mr connell after talking with mr carpenter why don't we try to get the city of camden to use their reviewing process so asking questions delayed this i did that asking questions got it the right way now i'm very happy with that i'll be able to support this tonight i want to thank mr connell and mr brazel for their hard work in it as far as uh know understanding that i wanted it postponed and i had asked y'all to go to the

» city to see if we could work out a deal with them because they're already set up did i not mr carpenter yes sir thank you but anyway that wasn't mentioned tonight but anyway uh mr connell thank you so much for everything you've done on this mr browser you as well um i will be supporting this tonight because now now it makes sense if i hadn't done what i did it would have been voted on two months ago bam bam bam would be dealing with the state archives over there and it'd be nothing but a big old hole that falls into nothing and you know folks i'm not being ugly i'm just being factual this is the truth okay thank you thank you other comments please sir mr uh ben thank you so much for pushing on this it's something that has been has been near to dear to me for a couple years now and uh so tha

» nkful to have that and and uh quite honestly i was i knew uh from the very beginning the city of canada was going to be a key player uh player in this and uh so i'm excited that we can finally finally get this moving so okay yeah you're on top of it sir okay no further comments i i'd like to make sure that once this is if it's passed and it once it is passed we have some sort of notice out the landowners and figure out a way to publicize this so they know the procedure and perhaps we use lauren or somebody like that so they know it's happened more than just relying on the newspaper and the radio mr chair yeah go ahead if i could on that point very important i forgot to mention for anybody that's thinking of taking advantage of this opportunity in freezing a tax rate for an extended period o

» f time you have to be an approved um except for certain properties that are kind of like grandfathered right now that haven't been reassessed because this is the first time you're passing it you have to be approved beforehand because they want to have certain historical markers and requirements in place because sometimes they need to know what's going on behind the walls so somebody goes in and thinks i'm going to get three months of work done and then sheet rocks up and it hasn't been restored in a particular way you may not be eligible so you got to have the reviewing authority on the front end to say yeah this qualifies go ahead you know off to the races and get your project done and you get to freeze your tax rate yeah in addition to this press release we need to address one question th

» at properties that qualify already with the city are they grandfathered in for this provision with the county mr. DuBose if the property has already been assessed that's the key word if it's already gone on the books as assessed did it will not qualify okay I think we'll just need to have a good press release that covers some of these things with the appropriate references back to the staff and so on okay well i hope you use some other newspapers instead of just a chemist jones wheel yeah we will figure it out away uh with that we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous thank you very much gentlemen that's a good piece of work and good cross talk we move now to another item that requires you to go away for a while and i will recuse myself thank you

» surprise item number three is a third reading of an ordinance authorizing the execution and delivery of a fee agreement by and between Kershaw County and the RJR Land Group. It's at tab G. It's on the screen. It's on page 95. And with that, Mr. Carpenter, open it up. Mr. Chair, members of council, you know, for a number of years, the county has been working with a local company, Roy's Wood Products, to support their expansion.

» We are now at a third reading of a fee and lieu agreement between the county and the company i believe mr dubose has a slight amendment that he would like to make to uh to this ordinance that has been discussed with the company and it is their request um do you want to make that a part after we get it uh motioned or do it well chairman yeah the approval can have to be by an amended motion motion on third reading will have to amend the motion on second reading because this ordinance contains affiliates Which would not only be the new facility, but would be the existing facility.

» So this covers the new facility, which is a property on 601 that the county, where Fairfield conveyed to them through the county, but would also include their existing facility, where previously it did not include the existing facility. So the motion to amend in conformity with the documents. Okay, so let's get it on the table first, and then we'll make a motion to amend, and you'll have to help us with that language with that let's move to a motion to approve as written and then we'll get to the amendment we have a motion motion Thank You mr. grass the second from mr. Connell okay now mr.

» it's on the table tell us how to amend this door now a motion needs to be made to amend the ordinance in accordance with the ordinance and the fee in lieu of tax agreement in the agenda package which includes sponsor affiliates the sponsor affiliate is the existing facility. Okay well that's a long that's a mouthful. So I think we'll restate it as amended to include affiliates. How's that? Happy happy with that language? And in accordance with the documents in the agenda package. All right can we have such a motion? Mr. Chair I'll make a motion that we amend the original ordinance to include affiliates as well as other language that our illustrious county legal staff has described as well.

» Okay we don't to agree with illustrious can we have a second second that's your time uh sammy yes okay with that discussion mr mr devos you started this yeah mr chairman of the stated the um documenting the agenda package uh mentioned sponsored affiliates well sponsored affiliates are just corporations or organizations owned by the same people that own rjr which is as you pointed out i believe roys wood products the same owners so it includes the new facility and the existing facility and the existing facility is owned by a different entity um i can get you the name of it but it's spelled in the um let's see the two tiger properties yes two tiger properties yeah two tiger okay good all right very good other discussion and the new facility or the old facility anticipates improvements that wo

» uld comply with the philo as well yes under the new ordinance yeah so so that that is one of the key points i think and i wanted to draw that out the other thing i was going to mention mr chairman is that the due diligence was done on this prior to mr brazel coming on council i remember whenever we were talking about it like man it's great to be able to consider this option for a local multi-generational family business um and so i'm just glad it's coming to fruition thank you mr chair very good other comments if i may yeah mr jones clarification one one let me just say this this is a remarkable family third generation business i mean i've supported this from the very beginning and i want to make it clear to any and everybody out there russell brazel had nothing to do with this this was don

» e prior to him even getting on county council i'm just proud that we have a family like this that will bring something before us you know and that's going to move forward and grow in kershaw county now having said that you said new ordinance it's the same ordinance you were just amending it the amendment is not making a new ordinance we're just mending the other ordinance to include the two tigers properties llc and which has been done before which has been done before yes yes and i just want to make sure we have that on the record so if anybody is concerned about it give me a call and i'll help you understand it this family this family has been a stand-up family and just because one of the members have been on county council has nothing to do with it he's had no involvement in it whatsoeve

» r so anyway i support this wholeheartedly other comments third generation family the founder was a world war ii veteran mr chairman yeah go ahead i would like to just recognize mr jody brazel if the brazel family has anything that they want to add or say considering this bring the mic up please uh cody thank you for uh considering this and we look forward to investing in the county and in the people of the county by producing an even better place for them to work and y'all's efforts here will enable us to do that and that's what we intend to do and we have increased our uh investment from two and a half to five million minimum jude how many employees do y'all have i think we're floating around 83 84.

» 83 84 jobs and i think we've increased that by about 30 plus in the last five years wow good for you yeah because last time i asked your dad it was a 59 that was a couple years ago so you've grown yes sir that's wonderful thank you terrific are there any questions of me i think we'll get them all right thanks guys all right with that i call the question let's move to a vote all those in favor so signify and it's unanimous would you ask russell to come back in and pass us with russell not a member the next item is item number four if you're in your electronic books it's the second reading of an ordinance to provide budget appropriations it's in a in your electronic book it says part two and we're going to go through four parts tonight it's in part two on page one and adopt and implement the

» charging collections and service and rates and fees for the tax purposes for the period of fiscal year beginning 1 july 22 and ending 30 june 23. mr carpenter can you introduce the budget mr chairman members council you have in front of you tonight for second reading uh the 2223 kershaw county budget i have a presentation prepared for um when council places it on the floor all right so we'll make a motion and we'll ask mr carpenter to speak all right so with all let's move now to a motion to approve do we have a first mr chair make a motion to approve second reading about 2022-23 budget mr tucker a second mr gardner second yep good with that over to you vic mr chairman can i make an amendment please we'll do that after we have the presentation yes sir thank you thank you may council uh the

» budget that is being presented tonight forms with a state law and prepared by the administrator and presented to the council as the council has directed me uh it is a balanced budget no millage includes a number of things includes the village sewer district i'm afraid people can't hear you if you're not he's going to the podium don't drop the mic man thank you sir okay it is a balanced budget with no millage increase the millage uh the sewer millages has been referred to has been removed from this budget um it is a a growing budget and it's growing for several reasons. One is that reserve funds are used for capital. We had a significant reserve fund excess this year. We use ARPA funds in the budget and also the value of the mill itself increased.

» So all that combined to result in a fairly significant increase in the budget itself. We also show a significant increase in detailed budgets in part because we've added detailed grant accounts for the first time. So there are a number of grants that go through the county and for the first time our budget will reflect those grants. So when you look at the general fund, the general fund for the county by category is broken down into personnel, operating, and transfers out. So personnel for the county are now over 20 million dollars of our budget as personnel. Operations are about 10 million and transfers out, which are mostly going to capital, a few things like that, are approximately a little over 5 million. It actually increases by 25 percent. Total growth is 7.3 million dollars.

» One of the main reasons is because the value of the mill has gone up from $255,000 to $287,000. Spending, the biggest increase in spending is personnel. Over $2 million this budget reflects increase of personnel costs. 28% of the overall general fund growth is coming from our personnel. This will include cost of living increases for all county employees of between 4% and 10%. Transfers out, as I mentioned, is a significant increase. We've gone from $1.3 million to $5.6 million. It's about 60% of the total growth of the general fund are transfers out. Those are broken down into, as you see, almost a million for solid waste-related projects, 1.3 million for economic development that came from the sale of land, and $3 million going to capital projects.

» There's this broken down into the pie chart, for those of you who like pie. So the goals and objectives. County Council set goals and objectives back in February. These are those goals and objectives. Red means this budget does not accomplish the goal. yellow means that the goals are are addressed they may get finished in this year but they're at least addressed green means that they are addressed it will be finished by the end of the fiscal year so the red items in particular the sheriff had requested three new positions those are not included in this budget also included it also not included in this budget recommendations or the ad hoc personnel committee I could not include those recommendations because I don't have them yet.

» So I had to list that as unaccomplished because we don't know what the recommendations are going to be at this point in time. Under our median priorities, they wanted to address compliance with our solid waste ordinance by out-of-county users. Again, this budget itself does not address that. The same thing, it wanted us to fund the Casey West ball fields with the putting of lights and a splash pad. It does not do that. I wanted to increase our, sorry, wanted to increase registration fees for recreation, do not increase recreation fees, and wanted to fund a litter control officer that does not fund a brand new litter control officer. So those are the things it does not do, but what does it do? Well, first of all, it begins the process of the comprehensive plan rewrite.

» That'll be about a two-year process, so we fund it. It'll take a while to finish it. The same thing with the ZLDR. We fund it. It'll take a to finish it but we have funded it. It does remove millage from the sewer bud. It does evaluate and develop and implement a 9-1-1 retention plan. As you recall some months back there was great concern and so we have started that process and funded it. What it also does is we continue purchasing vehicles according to our vehicle replacement plan. We continue to develop and support methods to encourage employee retention and continue to implement programs that help us adapt for the workplace of tomorrow. We continue to support expansion of Wi-Fi in the entire county.

» We continue to digitize records and continue to move to virtual environment for all public records and processes. We've completely gotten all records of the Register of Deeds office digitized now. Now we continue to move into other departments. So we started looking at the minutes of council meetings. We go back to the 1940s with minutes before it was a county council, before it was when it was just a board of directors.

» So we'll be digitizing those as well mr carpenter yes does that mean codification is also complete i would refer back to the attorney whether whether he would say it's complete is the codification project done i think it's all in the hands of the codifiers now it was a laborious process okay yes has it been started oh yes i mean it's 90 something complete i think he asked what eight years ago. It's been a while. Thank you. We do continue to partner with KC Trails, Friends of Goodall Park, and other citizen organizations such as we did tonight. On an apartment by department basis, reviewing salary schedules, adjusting as needed in order to ensure competitive position and safe staffing levels are maintained.

» We maintain a focus on encouraging a heightened Central Midlands Council government commitment to our roads. So those are things that it definitely does accomplish. Our special revenue funds, again a large increase because it better reflects grants we budgeted the American Rescue Plan the fact that we budget those funds does not mean that the council has to spend them but by budgeting them it gives the tank council complete flexibility of addressing needs that may come up in the course of the year we increase the economic development budget because of commitments to ongoing economic development projects and again the capital fund increases from four million to seven million dollars most of the four million or carryover from previous years that are underway but have not been completed.

» So the additional three million are the excess funds that by council policy we must spend on these kinds of capital items. Fire service, roughly 10 percent growth of their budget. Again, much of that is based on millage growth. Cost of living for them as well, four to ten percent per employee. We do not show revenue from a vehicle fee in this budget. It does not fully fund the fire plan as originally anticipated.

» Robert, how short is that dollar was? Probably about four hundred thousand dollars okay thank you yes sir what does it include to pay for that what is it what does it include what does it include to pay for what he said isn't paid for the revenue that comes from fire comes from a combination of millage 10.1 mills in the non-fire covered parts of the county and then a per parcel fee that are imposed on all properties that are in the non-fire covered parts of the county how much are the fees uh sixty dollars as always the budget increases four percent it's a balanced budget but it does not address all the desired goals and objectives as we previously said it does show a call of cola four to ten percent uh capital expenditures are addressed to the county's capital fund uh this does reflect a r

» eduction of service hours in sites it reflects no longer taking tires to convenience centers and a consolidation of green waste to only a few sites in the county as you recall when we went over solid waste during the budget process we shared that the budget is no longer able to continue providing the same level of services that are needed by the citizens of this county so in order to maintain a balanced budget we have to look at what we're providing in services and that's what this budget reflects economic development again shows significant growth however the growth for that is spent on capital projects staff remains the same operations remain the same but the large projects for example prestige farms as well as other projects that are out there that we've committed to or in the process of

» doing ems this is the first year for them budgeted at 9.1 mills it is a balanced budget it does show us growth of personnel expenditures again four to ten percent per employee it does not address all the desired goals or objectives sewer is a balanced budget does reflect increase of sewer rates per the rate study fully funded often self-generated user fees with no subsidy any longer therefore it reflects the elimination of sewer millage the wastewater treatment plant expansion the design begins we continue building the southern loop we finished the richardson bypass project we show an increase in staffing to ensure quality service and again we raise salaries to maintain competition and competitive levels this is the um i'm sorry i jumped ahead of myself there so this is the budget that i pr

» esent to the county council tonight i'm turning back to offer any questions if you go back to the uh red green amber chart that may be a basis for it like right there yep all right um any discussion before we go to amendments i see they are none mr gardner you have an amendment that's that down mr chairman i'd like to make a motion to transfer 300 000 from funds appropriated in the fiscal year 2022 okay uh 21 22 budget from arpa funds to to provide support to the Mount Pisgah area and surrounding communities in Kershaw County to turn the former Mount Pisgah High School building and property into a community center.

» This transfer of appropriated ARPA funds is contingent on the Kershaw County School District conveying the entirety of the former Mount Pisgah High School property to Kershaw County along with any other support and school district might support. Transferred appropriated ARPA funds will be held in distinct account and the disbursement of the funds for a stated purpose would follow county guidelines for use of public funds for a public purpose. All right, can we have a second discussion, please? Mr. Chairman, Mount Pisgah lost its high school in 1980. It lost its elementary school back in October. It's been a part of that community for 98 years. Wow.

» The people up there had asked me, and they were wondering how they could save their school and that sort of thing, So I came up with the idea of making a community center. I talked with Mr. Carpenter and Chairman Burns. We took a visit to the old school. Thought perhaps it could work as a community center, social service area. A couple weeks later, you'll see in the handout, we took a number of agencies here, Community Medical Clinic, Food for the Soul, Library, Live Well Kershaw, Rec Department, to name a few. And they love the idea about putting in a community clinic and some of the other services that are 25 miles away from Camden.

» And so I think this is a project that could not only service that area, help that area, help to grow that area in recreation and many other aspects, but it could provide services that a lot of those people can't get to. But also, there is little or no internet up there, so people can't go online and pay taxes. So it could be an opportunity to open up and have people pay taxes up there for one day a month or something along those lines. But I think the opportunities are great. We had a meeting last week and called for the people in the community to come out. It was on very short notice, on about three days' notice. We had 36 people in the community. They are all gung-ho to do it.

» This is something that county would start and fund, but after two years, the community, we would start a 5013C, and we would take over the running of the property. But I think it would be a great opportunity for that area that would draw from the Buffalo, Mount Pisgah, Abney, down to Timrod, even just a number of communities up there that it would draw from that would offer them opportunities that they can't get to. So I ask for your consideration to support this tonight. All right, Mr. Tucker. I just wanted to say that I appreciate, Tom, your efforts. Mr. Carpenter, you as well, and all the partnering agencies. I appreciate Mr.

» Gardner reaching out when he saw that this was an opportunity with the school district to do something good in that area, to expand services because a lot of times the rural northern end of this county does not have access to some of the things that we may have from the inner part of the county or even the west part of the county. So I applaud you for your efforts and finding the funds to do this and giving them opportunity to get stable and self-sustaining. Thank you. Go ahead, Mr. Taylor. - Can I add one more thing? - Mr. Gardner. - I have been in contact with the school district and they do indicate that they would donate that property to the county. You know, $40 million property, nine acres, I believe.

» They've already donated the ball fields to us some years back that are across the street, but it's an opportunity that we don't have to build anything to do. So, you know, it's billions of dollars in the school plus the property. So I think it's a wonderful opportunity for us. Thank you. Further comments? I'll just say that, Mr. Gardner, can you also talk about what you and I chatted about as a public-private partnership with local industry in the area, please? Yeah, we -- there are a number of industries there that -- the gold mine that do a lot of public contributions for Nestle, you know, Luckstone.

» We've identified several that we will be approaching them far as some opportunities for them to help donate financial assistance and perhaps programs if you will for that area as well so there's a number of young people obviously because the children who are now going to the North Central Elementary at the meeting the other day the 36 majority of them were Mount Pisgah High graduates as I am 49 years ago but they are very interested and really I heard from a number of others who could not make the meeting and I've heard from I can't tell you how many from Charleston to Greenville and everywhere else who are interested in whatever they need as far as making donations that time when passes that they will take over ownership of the building and then they would run the programs there themselves

» we have identified you you have some of the ones there there are other agencies here council on ages is one that I think we could reach out to but there's a number of others who could possibly open some sort of a satellite operation there that provides services that for some of the people that can't get to Camden or to another doctor somewhere else other services as well so I think it would be a great opportunity for this council to buy into this what can you might please in the northern part of the county okay other comments mr chairman if i go ahead russell um just for clarification so um councilman gardner this this will be a one-time contribution from arpa funds to kick start it and then we're hands off kick started you know part of this money there's some parts of the building that wou

» ld have to be for ada and some other areas that would need some work to bring it up to code or what have you. And then basically, it would be two months or two years of operational money. And then after that, that would be it. That's what we're asking for, to get it up and running. And then we're going to be forming a committee. We have set a meeting for next month, for July the 14th, if any of you would like to go, to talk to the people up there.

» We're going to set another meeting to uh talk about what we're going to do one way or the other and uh but yes this is a one-time request all right councilman gardner um i hear your passion for the rural community i share that passion for rural communities and i'll support this tonight because i know how much it means to the folks up in mount pisgah and we we want to support those communities i'd look forward to meeting more of those folks and supporting this i've heard from multiple people that this is very important to the community thank you very much very good other comments uh mr jones thank you so much well actually that was in my council briefings tonight to talk about it because i know that we've we've they've been wanting to do this for a long time and i'm glad you brought it up to

» night mr gardner um i think that they do get overlooked they're way up there and it's easy to do but i am very pleased with what you've done tonight mr gardner for that community and i truly mean that uh this is a good thing so and i hope that when we do this tonight for buffalo mask is which is the right thing to do and i'm going to support it but we also look at the knights hill park sammy and russell okay yes sir okay thank you because i i like using the opera funds for this i think it's really going to be a good opportunity for that part of the county thank you for me uh you know the school the school district a few years ago tried to say that that school was dilapidated i think that uh the chairman and mr carpenter can uh verify that it is it is not dilapidated it is in relatively good

» shape uh so a lot of it is is ready to go now there there will be uh the need to do some work in some certain areas uh well i may meet y'all up there on 14th i won't i'll try i'll drive myself six o'clock i'll remind you remind me okay thank you other comments. Mr. Chair. Mr. Connell. Mr. Gardner, I like the idea. Just a few questions to make sure I'm clear on it. So, the school district, I think some of the improvements, repairs that they required, required them to bring it up to modern code based on safety and security concerns. Since this is going to be a community center, that's not one of the issues that you have to deal with. I don't think we would have very, Mr. Carpenter's been there. The capital costs are limited.

» Can you speak to that, please? There are some limits to the building. It does not have sprinklers, So that would preclude us using it for housing, things like that. So there's some things we cannot do with the building without bringing it up significantly. The school district did not do. But they, for example, some years back, they took all the, and they remediated all the asbestos and got rid of them. A new roof on it not too many years ago. The air conditioner units are fairly new. So they have put a lot of money in upgrading it. There's just a line where we can't cross over as far as using the building because of what it doesn't have. But we're aware of those limitations. Thank you. Mr.

» Gardner, between now and third reading, do you think we could have written agreements from any of the stakeholders that will be required to be in place for this thing to continue on so county council doesn't have to fund it in the future? I would say I would ask staff to get that process rolling. Yeah.

» I mean, you know what I mean? If it's a community medical clinic or if it's other people that we're relying on and we're going to try to make this thing happen we don't want to have just lip service in my view i think we want to have something written from them so they acknowledge you're getting some valuable consideration uh to provide a service this canal i can't obviously speak for them but when we started talking to them as you'll see this report in april so we've been talking to them for a few months now and from the very beginning was made clear that any commitment that they were willing to make they had to do it for at least two years that we could not make a commitment of this level from the county and then have them show up no one comes after one or two times they don't come anymor

» e so they're fully aware that the commitment is for two years at least for that now i would assume therefore they'd be willing to put that into writing as well i can't guarantee that but they know that we were looking at a minimum of two-year commitment for me otherwise not to participate yeah well i would like to see something in writing from those we consider key stakeholders to make it happen and that way they've got skin in the game if we're going to contribute and try to make something happen i think they need to commit as well and then the only other thing i was thinking of um mr debose let me know if this is a useful thought or not but if it gets uh transferred no cost over to a 501c3 do you think we should have some type of first right refusal i mean heaven forbid but say the projec

» t doesn't work out doesn't go south you will have sent uh numerous amounts of taxpayer dollars to a private entity albeit a non-profit but a private entity shouldn't the county have assets revert back in that way if it doesn't work out yeah yeah mr connell we can have a revert clause in the deed okay it says so long as it is used for uh designating purposes okay thank you those are the questions i had thank you mr gardner other comments yeah mrs thank you just want to offer my support uh tom thank you so much for your research on this uh this is a vital community uh to our county and I love the history there I was talking to Tom about it and I didn't realize the basketball powerhouse that Mount Pisgah was in those days and when you consider the the small community and that's I think preserv

» ing that type of rich history is is very important to us and mr. Carpenter so this has come from ARPA funds and this won't impact any of our other uses that we were needing those funds for I mean this is within the bounds of that use yes sir this is very clearly within the context of the federal government set when they provided the ARPA funds. Good, thanks for y'all's work. This is great. They control basketball because they grew them big up there. That's right. Yeah. How many points did you score in that gym Mr. Tomlin? Let's go back to the ARPA funds. You have guarded 10 million for ARPA and when we passed the original budget last year there was a million dollars undesignated for the use of the county and so that's where that million and money is coming.

» That's what I would would recommend is coming from that okay at that level of the arpa fund all right go ahead man mr chairman one other thought um i love this idea because you you're working with the school district trying to find an asset that doesn't that's not going to go to waste and you're trying to kind of force multiply makes me think of the town of elgin as well just for future budgets i hope you all will consider they're working on some type of community center right there at potter park they've already got significant funding they're trying to get some state funding if the county contributes at some point in the future you can piggyback on and use that as a disaster shelter or have rights in the facility and that literally is the fastest area growing in our county i mean when i d

» rive through there it was a 25 growth rate uh or 24.9 24.8 growth rate from the last sentence which is just crazy um so that's one of the areas i think we need to look out for in the future too thank you mr chairman and we've seen other models such as we saw at antioch with johnny outlaw when he got the antioch school so it's uh it shows the vibrant nature of our innovation our ability to take care of our people in various ways other comments if i make tom yeah go ahead you know one thing about this that makes it different than any of the other parks that you've done is that this was an opportunity tom and you seized on it with this property this building and everything else so that's a big difference in some other things that we've done in my opinion but thank you the uh mr chairman if i m

» ay the uh it's my understanding that the school district is conveying the old barony cab school to kirkwood community going to convey the old bethune school to the town of bethune that's my understanding i don't know if that's yeah i met with the major i met with the mayor yesterday on this matter there's a lot of energy in our county and let's just fall in and see what we can do to help all right thank you uh other comments all right we've identified the source of funding our rules and amending the budget are you gotta find a source of funding okay so with that we'll move to a vote all those in favor signify and it's unanimous I now recognize mr. Russell Brazel thank you mr.

» chairman I'd like to also make an amendment to the budget please I propose that we amend the fire services budget fund 202 to reflect the following changes um and this will affect pine grove fire department um under revenue 194 000 will be added from fee and lieu revenue under expenses 215 000 is added to personnel line items to reflect three additional full-time employees at the pine grove fire station um thirty thousand dollars will be removed as a part-time line item to reflect an addition of three full-time employees so so what we're doing is we're going to do away with one part-time employee and add three full-time firemen so that pine grove has a 24-hour service it's it's only one person but it's a start for our community 60 000 is also added to expense line items to reflect cost asso

» ciated with the addition of three full-time employees at the pine grove station and 51 000 is removed from the equipment non-capital line item to reflect costs to be cut in order to allow the addition of the three full-time employees i'd like to make this in form of a motion and i'd also like to state that i've worked with will glover and i've worked with vic carpenter to make sure that this works this isn't um just off the cuff i've spoken about it briefly with a few of you but we hadn't gone in any great detail um i'd also like to point out that it's the third busiest station in the county and it's close to the lake it's going to provide life-saving services for a lot of people who are underrepresented now okay i'm going to restate that okay and see if this is comprehensive uh the establi

» shment of three full-time employees at the pie grove fire station yes sir using philo funds yes sir okay can we have a second do we have a second second uh mr connell uh okay uh discussion sir so again maybe i got a little bit ahead of myself with discussion but um we we basically got this worked out and i'd like to talk with mr carpenter is this feasible yes it's feasible okay does this take anything away from anybody else or or cause taxes to be raised no taxes would not be raised as a result of this should not be raised as all of this action okay fees Russell no sir no fees no things balanced so yeah it'd be funded from fee and loo money which which is wonderful as as you've seen through the course of the last year we've put all this time and money into economic development and now we're

» getting fruits of our labor we've got revenues that can be spent in different directions you can't totally fund the fire service from fee-in-lieu because it could get dangerous but when you've got something small like this it's just a few a few dollars to two hundred thousand dollars is more than a few dollars but it's just a few folks but in the scheme of a thirty million dollar budget this is this is small so I don't find it dangerous I don't find it out of the ordinary for for something like this to be funded this way and I hope that my colleagues can can support because we definitely need we definitely need some firemen at the pine grove station 24 hours a day any questions uh mr congress thank you uh russell just a few questions uh so this has come out of fee and lou is this and ms car

» penter jump in here is this new fee and lou money that because of reassessment where's because we've been we have been we've been struggling if we've been talking about fire funding for a long time and then all of a sudden it's we have some stop gap the way this would be managed um the snoggrass is basically each year fee and lou is collected from those those uh industries that have signed a fee and lou agreement with the county that are up and running on december the previous year so we would in some years the the amount of fee and lou revenue we have drops because nothing new got added and it slowly is depreciating some years it raises because the new industry comes on and adds adds to it um once we receive the fee and lieu revenues we take out of that money those expenses that the county

» council deems are important and need to be met so economic development budget comes out of that whatever is left after the county council has has not allocated funds is then divided amongst the taxing entities that are qualified to receive it so that would be the county the school district and in some cases, Lugo Fire or the city of Camden. So whoever is entitled to receive it would then pull their share out of that, and their share is defined as whatever their normal amount of taxing is. So in the big picture, generally speaking, the school district gets two-thirds of it, the county gets one-third of it, except for those few that are in the other taxing entities.

» So after the county would allocate funds from the top, so that would be common development, that would be fire, then whatever is left is distributed. so if it's a year where revenue goes up then it may be washed if it's a year where revenue goes down then there would be a slight decrease for everybody at the bottom so if we commit this with this budget and there's a decrease next year but that would we be in a situation we wouldn't we would not want to be in as far as this being able to be recurring good question oh and I'm not trying to blow a hole and I mean I'm just just trying to get it's just a decent question thank you yeah I I can't tell you what you would or would not not want to what kind of situation you'd want to be and obviously counsel proved it then that imply that you wanted

» that to happen it would have it has the potential having no impact or it has a pencil having you know up to 190 thousand dollar impact on what's distributed amongst everybody who receives the revenue so is this is so is this is this money that we would be pulling from the school district or is this again i'm again reiterating so is this money that they had 190 000 more last year than they will this coming year because we're going to use it for fire it wouldn't be the full 190 part of that would come out of the county's share as well but okay but if if there was no increase in revenue coming in then yes there would be a decrease to all the entities um who would receive the funds so the county in the city it's golden go ahead i pardon interrupt but we just saw that we had a massive increase i

» n revenue this year how many millions of dollars is it um organic growth a good two million dollars probably so i i don't think this is going to take anything from anyone that's why now it's important it's critical to do it now right this couldn't have been done last year and it can't be done next year russell can i ask a question i'm trying absolutely yeah and i'm like so my question is is not i hope it doesn't elude whether i'm for against this this is just me trying to wrap my mind around this hopefully it's helping you come to the conclusion that you come on go ahead mr snoggrass uh recognize you sir um that's all for now thank you uh all right uh anyone else yes uh mr connell no go ahead thank you thank you thank you mr chairman um i just want to share with the public the reason this c

» ounty council in small county rural counties in particular have to strain over how you fund fire there's this act called 388 you've heard us talk about a lot of times it favors large counties over small counties if way back when whenever act 388 was passed if you were a big county they said okay big county when you already have your full-time fire service in place we're going to cap you at that fire mill rate and then you can increase by a small percentage well if you're a small rural county and you still had a volunteer system only you got capped real low. So you could never have a personnel increase to get you where you could get moved to full-time fire.

» So that's why we struggle over, do you raise a fee on improved parcels? Do you pull from fee low to pay for this? Because the state legislature has not considered, I don't think they contemplated it back when they passed it, but they haven't considered how it hurts small counties in paying for the emergency and safety services they actually need. With that said, I just want, So it is new fee-in-lieu that's part of... All the fee-in-lieu goes in the same pot. So old fee-in-lieu, new fee-in-lieu, it all goes in the same pot. Yeah, I know it gets mixed, but we've got enough new fee-in-lieu to account for this increase. And I understand that fee-in-lieu is depreciating each year unless you get a new economic development or a new agreement that comes online.

» But we've got enough new fee-in-lieu to account for this safely. We don't anticipate this coming year having enough new fee-in-lieu to totally offset this. Right. So industries like Prestige are not on the books yet. Any others that come are not on the books yet. So the industry that we have on the books, we do not anticipate it would generate enough revenue to totally cover this. But that could come out of the county's portion of the fee-in-lieu? It's divided equally. So we can't just arbitrarily take it from the county and nobody else. Have other entities that would benefit from fee-in-lieu experienced some type of organic growth themselves? I believe so. I believe the school district's certainly seen a significant increase in their budget this year.

» Such that this small move wouldn't impact them, or have we contemplated that? If you're going to do it, this is probably the best year to do it. I guess I'd put it that way. Yeah. Okay. Can I ask a question along the financial side again? Well, how about me first? Let me just get some financial things in. Yeah, but you recognized everybody, and I've been waiting patiently. I do want to just— Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for your consideration.

» I just want to change—I just want to capture one thing, and that is the parcel fee for fire versus vehicle fee and then i'll give it back to mr jones can you talk about where we are on the vehicle fee well the vehicle fee last year county council did authorize the adoption of a ten dollar per vehicle fee um but as we know the next day the supreme court uh ruled that certain fees are are not valid and we determined therefore that since we did not know if that fee would be covered that we would not start collecting a fee that we had not collected before the parcel fee for fire we determined was probably safe because of the terms and conditions the supreme court set on determining whether it would or would not be valid so we kept keeping we kept collecting the parcel fee for fire but we did no

» t collect the vehicle fee so as was alluded to earlier um the fire uh fire program is not funded fully to the degree that the county council originally intended it to be funded i propose that we take that up discussion and some subsequent subsequent period uh probably in the third reading that talks about other sources of funds because we may by the 28th of june may know more about what the state house is going to do jimmy i just wanted to capture that issue go ahead jimmy how much is in our reserves right now um the equivalent of four months spending so um when that's roughly going to be um about 10 million um you feel pretty comfortable with what mr brazel is proposing tonight i believe it can be done it certainly can be done it's certainly legal to do it um other counties have done it we

» just have never done it and we still have a balanced budget we have a balance even with the 60 dollar fire fee implementation of last year everything's balanced you've been you've been a very conservative County administrator you've put money back every pretty much you save money every year that's where I do have a problem why do we raise taxes or fees when we are able to put back so much money every year but you do a good job of that I want to say this Russell or mr. Brazel good job I got some concerns about it but uh I'm gonna support him tonight because I think mr.

» Brazel has put a lot of work into this he's been very creative with this I just to make sure convince me by the last reading that it's going to work yes sir i can convince you i hope to convince you tonight because there's no no tax increase the money's there um you tell me why we shouldn't do it now and maybe you can convince me that we shouldn't well the only the main negative that i would say is that we have not used the fee and lose stream this way before sure and that i love being a pioneer well we gotta look off fire we can help i love being a pioneer i love thinking outside the box and i like doing things differently we've done this without raising taxes put that on the record sir put that in your paper sir we've done this differently yes i have and yes we will continue to the sherif

» f the sheriff has needs we haven't addressed that the sheriff has needs their needs that need to be addressed in this community if we can fund civic projects in communities which i was happy to support if we can't provide life-saving services in rural communities i'm going to be very disappointed tonight i can assure you other comments mr tucker are you convinced yes sir i'm convinced thank you sir we're going to make this work okay all right mr gardner i just have a question you know we we've got the fire plan that we put in place a couple years ago how does this affect that change that or as you know i know we had some timeline where we're adding firefighters or something like that how does does this change that or how does this change that is mr glover here can you come speak to this sir

» as he comes up this is this is very deliberately put up on this uh screen where we are in red up there on some of those things go ahead will ask he's the one to ask good evening sir um in 2023 we were per the fire plan that was put in place we were supposed to hire three more firefighters So, and then three after that again. So, the three firefighters that we're supposed to hire, we're supposed to go to the West Watery side. So, this kind of does fall in line. It's changing just a little bit, but it does fall in line with the plan that was set in place of hiring three firefighters. This would be, this would be those, yes, those, these three positions would be that. We'd just be changing the dynamics just a little bit. They would be going to the West Watery side.

» Speak in your mics, sir, please. If you got these three, would you still ask for those three on the road? I mean, all I'm asking, is this going to be an addendum to what we always had in the fire plan? This would help fill out the fire plan by changing the dynamics just a little bit. And then, of course, whenever we put another plan in place moving into the future to add on to the back side of this plan, we would start stacking more. Okay. On that theme, up in yellow on the screen are some of the things we didn't get done on the fire plan.

» um do we uh do we proceed with the cat the new cassette fire station in this plan yes sir okay all right uh other comments uh mr jones is the funding there for the cassette i'm sorry yes the funding's already been put yeah uh mr connell i'm sorry you want to go ahead oh thank you mr tucker um for my best estimation it just adds another hub to the two hub and spoke system that we're kind of running with mutual aid agreements um but it seems like it adds another hub is that pretty accurate yes sir all right so well i was just going to say but let's anticipate at some point in the future if there's another hub that means they're going to be there's going to be a capital cost increase at some point to improve the station to to accommodate the ultimate full-time rotation that would be there and

» i'm fine if that makes sense if it reduces response times and all the criteria that we talked about in the original fire study maybe you need another hub that has that has some additional personnel out there for coverage but I'll support it second reading tonight I just want to learn some more about it if I may Jimmy I think Sammy's had his hand up for you all right Jimmy go ahead mr.

» Glover you like this proposal you like this idea yes sir I do too I didn't support the funding mechanism in the first I don't think he did either but this man over here to my right it is thinking outside the box he is getting creative he is looking at what all we've got and and I'm proud to to see that on this county council instead of just automatically creating another fee understand this i never was not in favor of your fire service i just didn't agree with fees millage and things like that let's find it another way this man has set a wonderful example of how we can do that without going back to taxpayers i like it a lot so you have my support on this tonight okay back to mr tucker okay um a couple things um mr glover i'm glad you you're here to give me some clarity on the changing of th

» e fire plan, but where I'm a little not certain about where we're going with this is that we've already authorized and we started a Cassette fire station. You can dig a well as deep as you can and have as much water, but without a pump, you will never get water where you need it. Without firemen in that area, then that station don't mean a hill of beans to the citizens that's up there, number one. Number two is that how do we jump from a plan that we already had in place, a plan way over here, without securing the funds, which is about $400,000 to $450,000 to complete that plan that I never heard about in work budgets and sessions from you or staff. Number two, this money that we're taking, and Vic said it, Mr. Carpenter said it, out of fee and lieu is a slippery slope.

» We've never funded anything out of that for purposes such as we don't want to get to moving monies from the field loo that are going to be reoccurring and that's going to affect the school district let me break that down to you how it's going to affect the school district the school district gets 70 of your taxes that's about 135 000 out of 194 that we're asking for the school district millage is only value half of what we have as county millage so if ours is 287 or say 290 there's 145 there about um maybe a little less so you have to raise millage more to equate the same dollar amount as i continue that is not on the backs of the residents here in kershaw county that is on the backs thanks to act 388 mr connell touched on that of the businesses and second homeowners that's not a big pool t

» hat you're So, with all this being said, I commend Russell on his thought process, out of the box, being innovated. I just think that we have to find another way of funding it other than fee in lieu. And I'm prepared tonight at the appropriate time to offer a couple of amendments on how we can fund that, that's not dealing with fee in lieu, because we still have to address Casset fire with manpower we cannot forget about that and put that can and continue to keep kick it down the road Those folks in that rural area deserves every bit of what we give everybody else and I say that because I live in rural Kershaw County I would like to have more fire men and women at Charlotte Thompson community fire department.

» That's what y'all have to And so with that being said that they are in an area where they can get assistance while we complete the plan that's up in the northern part of the county that very well deserves it as well. All right. Mr. Jones, you want to go ahead? Yeah, if I may. Mr. Tucker, I want you very well said, but I don't agree with you at all. As usual. Anyway, this councilman over here is the future of the county. He's young. He comes up with new ideas. He's thinking outside the box other than just going and creating a fee or creating a new millage.

» issues we fought each other up here I knew when to be quiet but this is a great idea I mean I really really really am happy that this was brought before this cast you know a lot of us up here just don't seem to think anything happened unless we create another fee or maybe try to get s bill 401 which is a joke and it's not gonna pass to take the cap off act 388 so we can have an unlimited amount of money to raise the millage on you know if it did and it open up pandora's box because everybody in the state every county state we want so it's a foolish bill and it's not going to pass and i'm usually and mr gardner knows this i'm usually always right and but russell great job great job i'm supporting this thank you and i want to i want to clarify something real quick the school district mr carpe

» nter has more money this coming year than they've had in the past year kershaw county has more money i'm not talking about ten dollars i'm I'm not talking about half a million dollars. I'm talking about millions of dollars in each budget. We're arm-wrestling over something that is quite ludicrous. Just because we hadn't done something before doesn't mean it can't be done. I want everybody to understand that. I will not be hampered by the ways of the past. We will forge a new future in Kershaw County however we must. Mr. Glover is on board and content. And we will fund those firemen in Cassett as well, I can assure you. and I will support Cassett as well. And I may sound like Mr.

» Jones when I say this, but I represent the entire county, and I want everybody in the county to get the services that they need. Yes, you do. Further discussion? Mr. Snodgrass. So just a couple questions on our fire plan. So let's talk about Cassett. The plan was always, so the current Cassett firemen are at Shepard, is that correct? Correct. And so whenever Cassett gets built, the crew that's in Shepard will go to Cassett? Correct. That would be 24-hour staff in Cassett. Are they currently 24 hours now out of the Shepard station? Yes, sir. Okay, so Kansas still has their 24-hour service. I want to point out, too, though, I know we're, this is, Russell, this is, you know, this is innovative and we're giving accolades and I appreciate that.

» But I do want us to realize there is, we still need, this isn't going to close the gap that, you know, we're talking about fees and everything. there's still going to be a need if fire is going to continue to plan this isn't going to keep us from having to face some sort of vehicle fee uh or some sort of a funding mechanism to further the plan because i think the plan needs about what four hundred thousand dollars uh this is only 190 or 200 you know proximate so i want us to be aware of that and i want us i hope the gentlemen around this dais are as much as we're fervent now we are continuing to be fervent when it's it's time to to appropriately uh or you know more appropriately fund the the fire service uh through the appropriate channels um and not saying the field is not appropriate it's

» it's just you know just again it's a new way new way to look at it um my question would be russell would you be i mean what if we just had what if the amendment just said we're going to use 200 000 out of fee and lieu to fund to give to the to fund the fire service and a lot and is i mean is it has to so what i guess the question is what if what if mr glover gets this and six months down the road and realizes man you know what um i tell you what the the need is actually one in pine grove and two in cassette i mean is that at that point we're discussing next year's budget so i think we'll take it up in six months because i mean i guess you know does mr carpenter does this language or mr dubose does this does this put a does this put a straight jacket if you will uh on the fire service that t

» his piece of money has to be used for for this or after they get it yes this is specific it would be the will of council yeah so it's the will of council that we would do this yeah okay if he tells us next year that something needs to change i'm all ears okay i think we're at the point of voting does anyone have anything further to add all right question yeah go ahead mr tucker so mr carpenter chief glover what is the plan to finish filling the plan for caset for the east side northeast side of kershaw county and do you even have room to fill it currently so currently we have two full-time firefighters at shepherd until caset completion those were the initial plan so once cast is completed we'll move those two full-time firefighters from shepherd to Cassett.

» The plan moving forward was to add another firefighter to the West Watery side and then to add another firefighter to the east side. So at that time, after Cassett's completion, we would look at adding personnel on that side. That's kind of where we're at right now. Well that sounded like one to two where you were adding the folks additional manpower. What is your recommendation though to fund that I guess is what I'm asking.

» Are we jumping pretty good ways down the road let's hear the question please go ahead you guys can say anything up here but as soon as i raise questions or or have a disagreement it's like i just spat on you or something mr tucker has the floor go ahead tam sammy mr tucker right now the revenue coming in wouldn't be enough to allow us to do that so the current funding stream for fire allows us to run the system we have and then this amendment would allow us to add that full-time position in um pine grove so the funding would be there that one but it would not be in the future the ability to finish the plan is not funded but we're not taking anything away from the current funding this is adding money from a different revenue source to the fire service and that's my point exactly so if we're

» coming why didn't y'all think about it coming up with two hundred thousand dollars why can't we add that to the forum we're halfway there well somebody else should have thought about it amen i represent district one and the people on lake watery and the people in pine grove and i went to work doing this so to that i say sir you should have proposed it and all the people in commercial county well we do have another option uh later on in the third reading of the budget and maybe we can defer that discussion what do you think sammy i i have no problem i mean you guys vote your conscience in your heart okay so we've i think we're at the point where it would probably be another discussion of fire in the third reading so with that i'm ready to call the question uh no further okay all those in fav

» or signify by raising your hands mr jones mr connell mr brazel mr burns mr gardner and mr snodgrass all those opposed and would be mr tucker the motion passed and now entertain any further amendments or do we go mr chairman i have another amendment to make go ahead thank you gentlemen that supported that that means a lot thank you mr glover um i would like to make a motion to fully support the sheriff's request of a five thousand dollar per year pay increase per deputy and uh the source of the funding we'll get into the motion all right so let's go to motion uh second second uh mr uh mr jones all right uh discussion we need to have a source of that funding okay so that's your question mr burns you're gonna let him talk well under our rules you make the motion of an item and you discuss wher

» e the item well that's that's something he'll bring up he doesn't need to be instructed to do that yes he does go ahead thank you mr jones any further i need no further instruction um i would also ask for fee and lou money to support the gap and if we cannot get it it from feeling money I suggest that we use it from reserves in order to get these people what they deserve Kershaw County deserves safety we need two SRO officers in every school but I won't start there I'll start with paying the ones that we have what they deserve Lee's done a lot with the little if we don't raise their pay we won't be able to compete with the state they'll go to sled they'll go to to work elsewhere and we won't be able to get the people that we need to support this community this growing community and i think

» it's going to put our sheriff in an awkward position okay let's be clear you said philo or reserves yes sir whichever ones we're going to need to refine that all right let's start with fee and lou attacks mr carpenter will we be able to present a balanced budget you can fill in with tax revenue that's increased we would have to go back and refigure um the revenue that would be redistributed would take away some of the general fund revenue that was fee and lieu so we'd have to go back and refigure the budget could we make it work yes sir it just requires us redistributing um because we would have uh and i hadn't done the math yet to see what the gap is but let's say it's 250,000 dollars more than we were currently putting into pay raises for them so we'd have to take another 250 from fee and

» lou and so that would trickle down so about a third of that would come from us so about 75 000 of our general fund revenue would go away that we'd have to either cut spending or replace in some other fashion so but it could be done okay but that's that that's how it would be done and we could still have a balanced budget if we could find the money for park ranger we'd find the money for this this is 500 000 probably no no no okay no no it's it's not that much it's what was your original answer their original ask sheriff bone total out the door your total ask was how much and it's partially funded in the current budget yes I want to say it's about 500 we do is each one of our deputies some of them are like our SROs we have six of them fully funded by the state for the past couple of years we

» 've actually received almost a million dollars in grants from the state to put SROs in our schools they're paying 100% of like six deputies eight are paid ninety percent by the school district which would also be you know ninety percent of their increases would would go toward uh would come from the schools then the remaining deputies it would be the full five plus you're looking at uh the end uh retirement is about twenty percent now you look another thousand so to get a five thousand dollar raise is about six thousand total per deputy but it would come out to about 500 is about where my but that's partially funded in the budget that we're discussing yes what what i want to do is fully fund it so if it was funded at 50 percent then that leaves another quarter million dollars to be funded a

» nd what i'm asking is that we fully fund it instead of partially funded so it the total i asked was 500 000 or maybe a little more and mr carpenter's already figured about half of that in the budget so what i'm asking to do is fund the rest of it which would be probably between 250 and 300 000 but the gentleman in the back tyler he could tell us better well i'm a little uncomfortable with this russell uh we don't have a complete solution when you came in here remember our rules are make the motion and have a solid approach that's identifies the source of the funding so it's not a room it's your point of order i'm the chairman and i'm saying that's That's where we've gone for the last eight years, Jimmy. Now, let me just get back to the point here.

» The point here is, is we're doing staff work in front of our staff, and we need to have a solid approach here. I take the tremendous need to take care of our sheriff, but this is significant redoing of the budget, and we don't have an approach. we're starting to do math here in front of this of this whole organization i'm inclined to table this and bring it back in but can he tell you what's point of order can he table an initiative that another council member brought up because he doesn't like it there's a motion on the floor and so um but he doesn't have the authority to table it you can ask for a point of order he can call for a vote to table it it's on the table the motion is on it been seconded emotions he said he was going to table russell's matter because he doesn't like it he can't

» do that motions on the mr chairman correct yeah yes sir would you uh recall your motion and come back identifying the funding source like you did with fire or are you willing to put it up for a vote and and have us vote on it i'll recall my motion if mr carpenter and tyler can have us um a balanced budget with full funding by the time of third reading yes yes i sure will thank you if any if i could ask you gentlemen to look at it with open eyes and open hearts yes sir i will i'll table the motion until third reading any further discussion there thank you mr chairman all right mr connell i was going to say thank you russell because i wouldn't be able to support it tonight i usually like to research far ahead of time and understand i knew about pine grove and could look at the numbers that ma

» de sense here um i'll just have to understand before third reading how we pit recurring costs against either reserves or a actually depreciating uh philo account because by design it decreases or it reduces over time so i would just have to understand that and how that could actually work and that's going to require some research yeah all right well i've uh been told that i don't like it but i do like it but the problem is we've got to follow our own approaches to a balanced budget or find a solution that's not as uh not here described with that uh we have one two uh for amendments are there any other amendments i i just want to speak to the conversation i i i just want to remind us i think we're i feel like we feel like there's free money out there but we we're taken from something so anyt

» ime you pull on a string the other end is is short uh and and you know there's a lot of hands that that go into the philo budget school district being you know being one of them as well as other entities and i'm not i'm not being for or against it i'm just saying um and i'm not if if i'm projecting this on to others forgive me i but what what's being communicated to me is like hey this is this is kind of this new this new revenue source i never thought about it it's always been there but we've always been conscientious of when you pull on the string it there's a reaction on the on the other end and so i thank you russell for for tailing this allowing us to to give it some more some more thought because this is a you know the fire the fire thing was you know it was kind of a tap of a hammer

» turn of a screwdriver time kind of an adjustment but this one is this one's fairly significant i got my sledgehammer yeah you guys ready to go all right let me go ahead let me comment i like your analogy of mr brazel pulling strings because he's he's pulling strings of trying to utilize fundings we have now this council pull strings is creating new fees or creating new taxes to fund something no but mr jones those strings are not that long well you know what and so we're taking away create fees and i you know i'm i'm you know i'm not speaking forward against i'm making observations i'm helping us i'm maybe i'm speaking out loud to help myself understand the the situation you know fully i let's see i thoroughly understand where i'm at with this i think he's making good sense he's thinking ou

» tside the box he's not going to taxpayers and i think it just makes people we're going to pay the fiddler at some point we're going to dance to the music we're going to pay the fiddler we are and so whether whether it's through philo or other sources when you talk about expenditure like this it's going to happen so i'm just i'm just making us aware of that and and i i appreciate the extra time to think about this but i also want to make mr tucker is right we open pandora's docks box with fire and so here we go yeah all right i think we're ready to say that we're going to vote on the budget as amended we have two amendments one is on pisgah and the second pine grove fire paid by philo uh can we have a motion to let's seat to amend the budget so moved all right uh mr brazos second second all

» right can we have any discussion as amended as amended as amended okay thank you thank you now with that we move to a vote to vote on the budget as amended all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous jimmy did you have your hand i did good thank you very much just very fast okay we'll now move on to a new business tab uh that includes lugo fire district it's at tab a it's on page four of the electronic book you're gonna have to go search for that and i ask uh the chief come on up the chief are we asking for a vote tonight correct on the budget that you have been presented all right i'm going to read it and uh let me get it called up resolution adopting a budget for Lugov fire protection district whereas uh code of south carolina laws as amended provides that the Lugov

» fire protection district uh through its board of commissioners and the governing body of Lugov shall adopt an annual budget whereas the fire chief of Lugov has prepared an estimate of revenues and expenditures for the fiscal year beginning one july and whereas the and as amended requires that Lugov provide notice and hold a public hearing prior to the adoption of their budget and whereas the Commission has reviewed the proposed operating budget in accordance with the section 6-1-80 held a public hearing on 11 May now therefore be it resolved by the members of the Commission duly assemble that the fiscal year budget 21 23 excuse me a copy of which is attaching exhibit A is hereby adopted as the official operating budget for Lugoff during said fiscal year.

» Can we have a motion to approve? - So moved. - Mr. Jones, a second. - Second. - Mr. Tucker. All right, Chief, let's have the presentation and then we'll move to a vote. - Yes, sir, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the opportunity to come up and speak. I've spoke to a number of councilmen regarding our budget this year, it's gonna be a little bit unorthodox what we've done in the past but I have heard plenty of folks speak up here tonight on behalf of this community mainly by counsel I do have a quick question I keep hearing fee in lieu of taxes but if you look on my on my 2022 2023 final budget you'll see that fee in loo um i'm curious where is that money because i have a lot of industry in my district and you can see that i'm under a hundred thousand dollars in fiat loot so where is that money m

» aybe i'll get some direct answers a little bit later on i'm not looking for that tonight but you also see in fiat loo there's also other income that other income is where we do billing for accidents outside of anybody that pays taxes within our district and that billing company generally revenue the revenues come in at about ninety six hundred dollars or five thousand dollars i don't go after people i don't go after their uh we don't send collection agencies but i am very curious because fee and loo and you'll see the invista fire contract there that's a contract that was not negotiated on behalf of this county or from this county that was a contract negotiated through the fire department within vista so fee and loo i really would like to know where that money's at because I'm not even touc

» hing $100,000 and we have more industry in Lugoff than we do in the county combined. So with that being said, you can look here and I wanna bring up some other points here really right quick. And this is nothing that nobody up here in council or anybody in America right now don't understand. Fact of the matter is our fuel is blowing us out of the water. The last two months I have spent one third of my total year's budget on two months of fuel. January of 2022, or to current, so since January, our fuel has increased by 153%. Since May of 2021, our fuel has increased by 165%. That is detrimental to my organization. Absolutely ridiculous. If you will see, and we will look, if you need me to break this down for every line item, then I will do so.

» We present a balanced budget every year, and I have fought for that every single year. What I'm looking at is, I look at the county's budget, and I see that these folks are going to be receiving anywhere from four to ten percent increase in pay. And what I have expressed to a number of councilmen is, my firemen generally get 1.5 percent, 10 to 12 cent on the dollar, to put your life on the line for the citizens of Lugo Fire Department.

» Making eleven dollars and twelve cent an hour you get a evaluation done you're rated on a scale of one to five a yearly evaluation done on a scale of one to five if you average a three and a half to four percent or four on your because you're not gonna make a five all right then you have nothing to obtain you have no goal to go after so my people have been here they're not my people they're my co-workers let me stop calling them my people all right they're my co-workers they're my family at Lugar Fire Department. When I have a four-year, five-year member who has earned a solid three and a half to four on their evaluation and they get a 10 cent on the dollar raise, that is heartbreaking.

» So the way the budget was presented this year is because, hey, I will tell you that I am seeking an amendment and I have spoke to many of you. I spoke in depth with Vice Chairman Tucker on friday evening yes i have spoke with uh jimmy uh councilman jones councilman connell we'll be meeting with uh councilman brazel i spoke with chairman burns fact of the matter is we had to reach out to our attorney we had to make appropriate amendments we had to have resolutions drawn up but i could not afford to not have a budget in place by july 1 so if i would have done this and would have had our budget and resolutions and amendments in place, and I come to you and you turn me down for what I'm looking for, then I'm starting over from scratch again.

» At least I know right now that I can get a balanced budget approved. Now, am I asking you to approve that budget? I absolutely am. I am. But I also want you to know that I have to have two public hearings, and we just got this finalized today because we had some issues with the amendment some issues with the resolutions and i expressed that to you friday night mr tucker yes sir and so by doing that speaking with our our uh well respected by the way attorneys one of the best spd attorneys in the state lawrence flynn we have come to the consensus of what needs to be done and i have to have two public hearings i have to have a public hearing on the amendment and i have to have the public hearing on what the proposed or what we hope the revenue will bring in.

» I cannot tell you what that is tonight because I'll be breaking the law because I have not held my public forum yet. I haven't had the opportunity to allow the taxpayers of the Lugol Fire District to come in and voice their opinion. I will tell you this, that I am looking to raise the salaries of my firemen, of our firemen, of my family, and I'm also looking to hire three additional firemen because we have spoke deeply and deeply, and we've been dealing with this for months about growth. Well, our community has outgrown Lugol Fire Department, and we are struggling day in and day out. I look at these guys' faces. They are dog tired. They're beat down. Yesterday afternoon, we had a structure fire. It's 105 degrees outside.

» When it's hotter outside than it is on the inside of that building, we got a problem. And I look at them, and they've been through two or three cylinders. You know what kind of athlete it takes to get through that that is unbelievable on the body it wears you down and these guys are doing it for 29 to 34 000 a year i'm very passionate about this i will not go away i promise you i will find a way to get them what they deserve so i know you're ready for me to move on and i wish to do so so i am asking for the budget that is presented in front of you to be passed tonight but i am telling each and every one of you that i'm coming with an amendment come july 12th after i've had have held two public hearings at the lugo fire district and i am backed by my board 100 what would you like to ask me s

» ir that's excellent uh would you take some questions chief i absolutely will all right uh who made the first motion uh jimmy go ahead chief great job y'all do a great job appreciate you being here tonight thank you and i'm sorry for the misunderstandings that you got with the leadership in kershaw county when you said how you wanted this placed on the agenda i think you went back and forth back and forth we wasn't getting any clarification correct that's correct all that's going to change i appreciate that thank you very much mr chair yeah i'm just uh connell so uh i just want to make sure i'm clear you're saying that you can't talk anything about the potential even percentage increase as a projection because you have to have this other meeting first the other two meetings first i have to h

» ave two public hearings okay all right right now i'd be introducing that before having the hearings sure okay other comments chief spitzer go ahead russell if i may um i appreciate the passion i i feel it in you just as much as you probably felt it in me a few minutes ago um look forward to supporting this and and then after you have your budget hearings being able to review it um obviously we won't be making any real decisions for you tonight um the only to say i do ask for you to approve the budget that's before you tonight if not i cannot move forward is it any tax increase involved there's no uh there is not a millage increase no okay thank you sir okay other comments hey chief great to have you here with your passion on this issue well done um no other comments oh mr tucker go ahead i

» just have one for a chief spitzer and um as you were doing your due diligence going through your amendment um was it in the cards or better for versus your proposed amendment that you're coming back to with us um or asking for a millage increase that would that would i'm sorry in that and what you want to do for your firefighters for you for for your salaries strangulation of act 388 yeah you just completely annihilated that i can tell you this and i will give you this um i would be looking at an increase of 1.4 mils it wouldn't even give me uh enough money to give my fireman a increase in salary i just want to make that clear why you were taking this avenue yes thank you thank you very good sir i think we're ready to vote chief thank you again uh with that let's uh we have the motion to ap

» prove all those in favor signify by raising your hand thank you chief and it's unanimous we'll see you on the 12th thank you i appreciate it very much thank you all right with that we move to the next item on the agenda which is item number one it's in part three of your electronic book on page one it's tab i i think you may have hard copies uh with that um it's a selection of an executive recruiter and i look to mr tucker to make a motion mr chair i'd like to make a motion that we uh accept the recommendations from the administrator on executive recruiter and have discussion discussion and not vote so with that let's have a second a second on that motion second uh mr gardner with that we move to discussion mr tucker uh thank you um mr chairman i um i've had time to preview some of the um r

» ecommendations that mr carpenter gave us and And what I would like to see this body do is have time to preview that and let's have a discussion amongst ourselves on what plan we're going to use or what company we're going to seek or if any company we're going to seek in moving forward. I think we need to finalize our next best step and then move forward from there on this process. I don't want to delay it, but I also don't want to rush through it and get it wrong. So, um, but I know that there was others on this diocese that, um, wanted time to have some dialogue amongst, uh, Mr. Carpenter's recommendations. Okay. Other comments? Yeah. Mr. Jones. You're going to give us your recommendation shortly. You will talk about it.

» Um, I do have, uh, a firm that, that I would recommend if we use the firm. Yes, sir. I do have recommendations there. You want to hear from me first, Jimmy? Yeah. Well, no, we can go ahead and put it on the floor. I'm sorry. Whatever y'all want to do, it doesn't matter. Yeah, let's hear the recommendation. But I would also say Mr. DuBose will be coming back, and we've asked him to do what's called a comparable of other pay. So at this point, we don't have a decision by us as a team what we're going to do to offer. Mr. Chairman, one thing I think I've made clear, I'm very, very interested. I'm not interested in signing no contract to hire any search committee.

» I want to give our current deputy administrator a chance six months to see what kind of job he can do, and I think he can pull it off. Yeah, and that's clear. I don't want to cloud his ability to prove to us by having a search committee over him. Yeah, and we're not going to vote on that tonight. But that also gets to the issue at some point we need to come up with pay, and that will be decided by this body as well, but not tonight. With that, I go to Mr. Carpenter, and I go to that discussion. Mr. Chair, members of the council, I reached out to four firms. Three of them replied to me. I have attached the information that they provided to me in the packet you have in front of you for your review.

» As I went down and looked at it, I came to a recommendation that if a council chooses to hire a firm, I would recommend Baker Tilly. It's one of the largest national firms. It has a national presence. They have done hundreds of counties and cities across the country. Locally, they have done Lancaster County recently, two different searches for Lancaster County. They've got the, what my conclusion is, they've got the most experience and they also have the most exposure amongst qualified professional administrators. Right. And the reason we asked it be done tonight is we're going to lose Mr. Carpenter in the next four days. And so the idea is that we hear his recommendation. Y'all get a chance to talk to him about it. Okay.

» Jimmy back to you you that you asked for this you talk about the discussion excuse me a discussion on the rehiring of the administrator yeah let me just say this I stand where I said I'm not gonna support going out and getting any search committee at this point in time this is just me folks I'm gonna absolutely support giving our deputy County Administrator a six-month opportunity to see how he can do and I think he'll prove us pretty well on that again it would just absolutely overburden or put a cloud over his performance I think trying to do his job for us I guess doing this right now I think we owe it to him I've had many many many members of the community come call me and come to me and said why don't you give him a chance and I said well that's what I plan to do and so I won't be voti

» ng for any search committee right now whatsoever thank you thank you other comments yeah we need to talk to Mr. Carpenter, but why he picked this particular company. It's national, some of these others are regional. Is there any comparable discussion about how much one would cost over the other? Tell me how fee structures are set up. - Well, as I included in my attachment, I broke down the fees. The fees are roughly similar for each company. The high is 30,000, the low is 24,000 for the search.

» They all provide a one-year warranty in the sense that if an individual that they provide us is hired and then the individual either leaves on his own volition or is fired without cause, or I'm sorry, is fired with cause by the council, then they would conduct another search for free at no charge to the county. Yeah. And then what kind of criteria do they use, or do we provide them a criteria after they interview us? They would pull together stakeholders from the community that would be identified by the council who they should include as stakeholders. Obviously, the council is also a stakeholder, so the individual members of council, and they would develop a profile of the individual that the council is looking for. Okay. Other comments? All right. Mr. Jones.

» I'd like to ask this council to table this tonight. Let's stick with our deputy county administrator to let him have the opportunity to prove to us what he can do. Is that a form of a motion, Mr. Jones? Yes. Okay. The motion is to table and go for six months with Mr. Templer. Is there a second? I hear no second, so we'll move on. I don't believe this. I'm very disappointed. Any further discussion? Very disappointed. Any further discussion? All right. Mr. Chairman, I have a comment. Go ahead, Ben. So, Mr. Templer, as the heir apparent, has done an outstanding job for county council in Kershaw County. and I think in other aspects of Kershaw County prior to his work here. I'm thinking that on one side.

» The other side is competition is all I've known my whole life, and it always leads to the best result. Instead of a cloud, competition, I think, draws out the best performance in people. And also, instead of having a cloud of, well, what if the grass would have been greener on the other side? Ideally, I'd love to, not love, I'd love to see, I'd like to see if a search came back and we said, you know what, Danny is the best in the nation for us, and choose him in that way. Excuse me, Mr. Templer, I'm too informal sometimes, 'cause I know him so well. He's such a great guy. Is this for actual vote tonight, Mr. Chair? - No sir, no. - Yeah, this is discussion. - It's discussion. - I said that in my motion. - Yeah, so, I mean, there's a lunch I need to have with Mr.

» Templer and others to learn further about some philosophical things in government that we have never discussed, 'cause we've been talking actual, practical, to state day-to-day application of uh how to administer some of these programs um but anyway fernsworth council those are some of the thoughts i have i love competition but i also really enjoy and value the work product i've seen so far over uh six plus years yeah very good thank you any other discussion i think we can close it and thank you for mr tucker for bringing that forward uh the next item on the agenda i got to get over there and get it here it is is a financial audit services bid at tab j part number four on page one if you go to part four in your electronic book all right mr carpenter can you introduce this mr members council

» uh we put out for bid our audit services for uh the current fiscal year and the next three uh two bids were received back uh you see them in front of you malden and jenkins from columbia and shaheen hancock and godwin of camden uh the bid was obviously dramatically lower for Shaheen Hancock and Godwin for the first year as well as for the three years of the contract Shaheen Hancock and Godwin incidentally does have the current contract so they're very familiar with this county and the personnel and our financial condition so it is a recommendation of the staff that we go with Shaheen Hancock all right can we have a motion motion mr. Gardner second from mr.

» Connell discussion seeing there now we move to a vote all those in favor signify by raising your hand and it's unanimous we moved in the next item which is a recreation master plan we were detailed to do this through asking mr. carpenter to bring it in after six weeks we made it under the wire before he departs and there's a vote required here okay with that we turn to mr. carpenter go ahead mr.

» chair members council yet another opportunity provided to me by the council to return with a report to you as you recall a few meetings back we had citizens bring to the council their their thoughts their vision for what they wanted to see one day perhaps in kershaw county so staff was directed to come back with an update of those facilities and what was involved with them as well as a report of where we are as an organization within our our rec master plan so the first thing is care as they called themselves they presented to them a report that showed several regional facilities they indicated a willingness to secure significant funds from the private sector to go towards this project again at your request we have come back with an analysis of costs and some details the first they provided

» was city of orangeburg's recreation complex see there the schematic of that facility this is what the facility looks like upon being completed the initial budget was 15 and a half million final cost is 18.2 million that was approximately uh it was completed in 2020 so about two years ago so um the current cost today would probably be about 21 million to build the same thing is a baseball field or what is it it is a complex so there are baseball fields softball fields okay thank you thank you very much they paid for it with a penny sales tax that's how they paid for it the company that did it each pinwheels you see has concession stand press boxes bathrooms their playgrounds hiking biking trails etc it's a significant piece of land over 100 acres i believe a patriots park and sumter in a 200

» acre complex it is paid for with a penny sales tax the cost of it was a total of 13 million for the generalities of which $7 million worth of baseball, softball, $5 million for soccer, and then a pavilion for a million. Hartsell, Byerly Park. Again, it's been built over the last 20 years. The eight ball fields were finished about 15 years ago, and it was $5 million just for those. There's probably $15 million to do today. It was paid for by a foundation, a private foundation paid for that. Then this one in Edwardsville, Illinois is an example of a regional park as well. It has soccer, it has open fields, as well as ball fields. 83 acres, $14.3 million. They use bonds to pay for their projects. City of Orangeburg and their gym. Beautiful facility if you've had a chance to see it.

» About $5 million for this. Again, a penny sales tax paid for. Two separate gymnasiums. This is about, I think, four years old is when they did it as well. So those are the projects that were presented to us. So the cost of any of those is anywhere for the full-size projects, we're probably looking at a minimum of $17 million up to $20 million for a full-size project. So the status, and I was asked to brief on the status of the current rec plan. These are the recommendations that are funded or complete. The armory refurbishment, we have completed the brick repointing, as you can see from the outside. We've completed the purchase of the necessary property to move the maintenance yard.

» So the next phase is now underway to move the entire maintenance facility out of the armory and then to turn the surrounding property into paved parking and landscaping. The dog park that was in there has been constructed. It's open for use. The Eldon Community Park, it has been constructed and is open for use. School renovations, splash pad was added with shade structures. New restrooms were added to serve the splash pad. Watery River Veterans Park development phase one has been completed with the walk-in trails, the launch. Phase two is partly underway. We've received funding for a fishing pier. So that is in the design phase, and that should be underway probably sometime in the next three to six months.

» At KC West Ballfields, the phase two lighting, we added lights to two of the new baseball softball fields. We still need to add lights to two more. And then the walking trails, we've added almost 5,000 feet of walking trails, over 2,000 at Veterans Park, and 2,500 at Elgin Community Park. This is what's not been completed yet, according to our rec master plan. the Anderson Field Renovations, which is the Miracle League field there at the Parks and Rec office, the Backstop Extensions at Dobie and KC West, Goodall State Park Acquisition, Irrigation and Turf Development. We've done some irrigation work, but not at all facilities.

» KC West Parking and North Central Area Facility, the baseball fields up there, the Science Park, the renovations, Skate Park, the Smith Road renovations in Lugoff, Woodruff Park renovations, and walking trails. Things we have completed, again, this is the cost of what we've done and where the funding came from in some cases. So the Army Refurbishment Maintenance Building came from the state. The Dog Park, the Mason family, and the Play Foundation. Community Park from the state. The Splash Pad, those are our funds. The city also put in about $300,000 into that. The Veterans Park, Phase 1, A-tax funds. The KC West Complex, and then the new baseball field to KC West. As you recall, when the school district built the Watery Elementary, they took away from us the ball fields that we had there.

» So we had to diverge from our plan in order to build the new ball fields to replace the ones that were taken. In Larry Doby, the money we spent on Larry Doby, office, and then Seaboard Park. These have all been money we've actually spent on parks and rec in the last 10 years. Several million dollars. Splashpad, just to remind you what it looks like if you need it to. Community Park, Entrance Park, Park Park. Say that three times. All fields of Casey West. So what's next? The budget that was presented will be recommending an update to the master plan. It's been 10 years since we did it. We've completed a number of projects. In other cases, things may change. That would include potential future facilities, as well as the funding needed and the sources of revenue required.

» So in order to accomplish some of the desired outcomes that were presented to the council, we would recommend that the master plan be updated, and that could then take all those proposals into consideration, and then they come up with a proposal that would be presented back to the county council any future facilities have been included in there we would include where the money would would come from or sources the money could come from but then again county council would have to approve any plan that back it up and so you you as the administrator can go ahead and authorize this as far as um it's included in the budget that's presented to the council yes sir so that gets to the recommendations from care that gets to the recommendations that we have across the board uh turnaround on the on tha

» t study would be four months yeah it's been 10 years since we've had such a study so any further discussion on that uh seeing there is none we move the next item on the agenda which is a proclamation uh put forward by uh sammy tucker a proclamation recognizing victor carpenter for his service to Kershaw County. And as I understand it, it was written mostly by the employees. It is from the employees. And so with that, I'm going to read it, and then we'll take a motion.

» Whereas Vic Carpenter served Kershaw County from 2011 to 22 as administrator managing operational budgets of $50 million and over 400 employees, and whereas Vic has selflessly, humbly, and tirelessly served the citizens of Kershaw County by exemplifying the highest standards of honesty, integrity, and stewardship, and whereas Vic Carpenter has established an organizational culture of trust and respect, earning him the admiration, loyalty, and goodwill of Kershaw County employees, and whereas Vic Carpenter has been an agent of change, envisioning, and implementing cutting-edge retention and development programs for employees and whereas Vic has provided leadership resulting in Kershaw County being a three-time recipient of the J Mitchell Graham award for innovation and government services an

» d a two-time recipient of the Baron Larimore award for regional partnerships and whereas Vic Carpenter brought credit to our local government by representing Kershaw County as a two-time president of the South Carolina Carolina and South carolina managers administrators and supervisors association and chairman of the south carolina local detention committee and whereas kershaw county respects the accomplishments of vic carpenter and serving south carolina communities large and small rural and urbanized for more than 23 years now therefore be it resolved that kershaw county hereby acknowledges recognizes and thanks vick carpenter for his many contributions and accomplishments in kershaw county and extends his congratulations for a job well done mr tucker you want to make the motion make a mo

» tion that we approve this proclamation and recognizing mr vick carpenter and a second second uh mr jones discussion mr chairman fma and my colleagues um this res uh this proclamation uh mr carpenter um was solely from the employees idea um this was kind of hard to keep from you that's why i wasn't on the agenda we had to amend it matter of fact we kept it from the chairman too because we didn't know how much he would tell you so um with that being said uh they dearly love you and you have you have inspired them and um put and believed in them and and just put i can in their life where they can do many great things moving forward and set them all up for success so i and this council thank you for your hard work and dedication to this county and as i always say i i wish we could clone you but

» since we can't um we're going to wish you well in your next endeavors thank you mr jones thank you if i may you know sammy and myself where we set in on the committee to hire vic we i think we interviewed three what was tom there tom was there too mm-hmm of course tom and and danny i mean tom and sammy did not want you i was i was wrong it is true i was fighting for you vic and so was gene wise gene wise and i were like this i mean we we had it together your nose is growing whatever but seriously vic they grown to love you because they knew i was right when we hired you and you've done a good job and i know it's been wonderful working with me i wish you it's been wonderful working with you and uh i wish you the very best and you know there was you know like you said we can call you he ain't

» gonna answer maybe but thank you vick for what you've done other comments uh david vic thank you so much for uh what you do your dedication to the county you know as someone that's newer here that had a you know didn't really have a whole lot of connection with the community up until just recently uh being able to come in and you helped me understand uh you know even further operations um county operations and i think one of the one of the legacies that you will leave behind is helping people put a face with county government you know sometimes when we when we when things are just numbers or the county is just oh those people or government or you know all that uh it's easy to make all sort of general statements but one of the things that I've recognized about you is is is lifting it lifting

» up the employees and allowing the citizens to see that hey there are faces behind what is called County government there are people who get up every morning to make sure that the recycle center is operational so that you can go and take your garbage there are people that ensure that that EMS trucks are running down the road that the sheriff's office is doing what it needs to do plannings and all these things and so i don't know what that means to you but from my view uh thank you so much for personalizing county government in such a way that the citizens i feel like have been able to resonate with and uh and i know that you'll you'll continue that in your new your new endeavor thank you other comments mr garner let me just say that one page doesn't do service to the value of this man uh tha

» nk you vic for all you do uh and all you've done for kershaw county been a good friend to all of us here and we appreciate that and you've uh covered our tracks very well and we appreciate it best of luck man thank you mr chairman vic um you've done a great job i believe because of the low stress and anxiety i feel you've done a great job because jimmy says he was here. If I can reclaim the floor real quick. You've done a great job because of low stress and anxiety, I feel, in serving on county council. You made it, for me anyway, easy to serve on county council. Whenever I have a question, you're responsive and you're on top of things in a way that's meaningful to me.

» Aside from all that, the relationship that we have is special to me because outside of immediate family and friends, you're one of the men that I've prayed with the most since I've moved back to Kershaw County, because we pray at every meeting, we pray at every meal, and that means a lot to me. So just want you to know that I love you. I wish you well as you go to Virginia. I hope that you form some more important relationships up there as well, but this one's going to stick with me. Thank you, Vic. And I'll close it out as a chairman saying thank you very much, sir. I have a small thing for you as we close out. With that, we move to a vote. All those in favor, signify by raising your hand. And it's unanimous.

» Vic, if you can up and i want to give you something this is what i wanted to give you last week but this is a symbol of the county you served so well and i just want you to turn around no pictures no pictures in 11 years and two in one night all right get one more picture let's get one come on all of us thank you for your patience uh let's move down to item number four discussion of electronic meeting when uh council member is absent and i would recognize councilman jones please us i still move for this we don't we don't need to vote this in do we no sir it's just a discussion yes sir okay go right ahead well i was i was in connecticut what i think a couple weeks ago yes sir and uh i had asked danny the county the deputy county minister or acting county minister to go ahead and set up zoom

» for me to come in he had that because we haven't done that before i believe right daddy i was the first and it was an idea that i had and they did it and it was actually set up well what didn't happen i was really wanting to talk to the chairman about this but he's left is that he didn't do a sound check with me he just kind of went into the meeting so i got cut off ended up having to go to just a telephone but guys it can we can do it we can do the zoom meetings if a council member has to has to uh leave or not or they're not able to make one of meetings and i was just kind of we're discussing with y'all because i'd like to see mr templer move forward with that on our behalf uh to set up because it'd be minimal would it not cost wise we already have the capability danny just very briefly w

» ould you just tell them what you'd have to do to set us up for zoom if one of us was out sick or traveling yeah i'm parking my i just um we have the little camera here so the the person on the other end of the zoom can see the council and their participation and um so uh just with the individual who was going to be on the zoom that the councilman we would just going forward have a connection check with them before we start the meeting so just to kind of make sure we shook that system down several times before we connected with you but what we didn't do was connect with you which would have been well yeah i'd never get i never got any sound check or anything we just jumped into the meeting and i'm not trying to beat UP ON ANYBODY BUT IT'S JUST THE FACTS YOU KNOW YOU GOT TO SLOW DOWN YOU GOT

» TO WORK WITH THE ADMINISTRATIVE ONE OF US ARE OUT AND WE'RE ZOOMING IN SO THAT'S A THAT'S A QUESTION I HAVE SO WE CAN TAKE MORE THAN ONE PERSON SO BLESS YOU UM RIGHT WE CAN'T HAVE NO MORE THAN THREE OUT ANYWAY THAT'S PART OF OUR RULES YES SO IT CAN HOLD UH WHOEVER IS OUT UH TO BE ABLE TO ZOOM IN RIGHT AND AS WE MAKE THE IMPROVEMENTS TO THE CHAMBERS UH GOING FORWARD THAT CAPABILITY WILL INCREASE AND BECOME a little more solid now when we have the capability of seeing them or just hearing them you could you will see them that's what this little camera here for is for so you have audio and video okay what that's gonna show up on the screen or no it's it's just gonna um it was like a person in person okay with that we display up here okay yeah yeah because i was absent that meeting so yeah a li

» ttle loss so it will give you like a picture and picture up in the corner so we don't block the screen from the agenda items right okay you have any further council that was it i just uh i don't so what i'm going to say openly is that i'd like to see mr templer move forward with this unless somebody has sound like he already has we already yeah we just need to for you to be absent one more time i'm only kidding well mr chair yes sir and i would just add just make sure you know in my experience when i've done that before it works better if you have some sort of earbud or sometimes and IT guys can explain this you know every mic is different on your on a device so I would recommend investing in some sort of some some air pods because if you rely just on the mic just on the computer depend on

» what kind of Peter is and I think the last meeting mr. Jones that was kind of the issue was I think when you got close when you got close to your computer we can hear you a lot better and so I would just you know if you're gonna do that let's just make sure you keep that in mind as well it may not be something in the chamber it maybe something on our on our on our own device well into it takes counsel working with individuals right out I mean we just can't because there's a new concept I mean I do zoom meetings two three times a month I know somebody may do them every day but it's not a complicated process if we've got I just think it's better for us and but I had to go to telephone is it's harder to participate and of a Danny mr.

» tempers done a great job on that and I guess you can feel free to move forward and have it set up for anybody who's gonna be out mr. vice chair yes sir I think I think it's a move in the right direction I mean anytime you have technology involved it's not going to be perfect okay connectivity on the other side wherever you are remotely visiting at the hotel or on vacation wherever you might be it could be funky and make us think that we're doing something wrong here but it's real you never know but we give it our best attempt and either way under our rules we'll have a quorum so and I think we not sure I think we'll get chance to test it again cuz councilman brazel will be out on the 28th i'll actually be out of country so that'd be a chance to do a nice run on it if he's coming up on zoom

» he may come up just on conference call i'm not sure but it'll be a good time to do another run anything else thank you okay well um any further discussion on that from anyone else hearing none let's move to item number five underneath new business discussion regarding hiring of administrator i'm going to ask did that just be dropped i think we've already done it i think i was about to ask you we already had a couple discussions on that and if you're good with that we'll move very well okay well we're down to council briefings we're going to start with mr carnell councilman connor thank you mr tucker um already bored more hard out to vick thanks again i wish you safe travels and godspeed that's all i have amen thank you miss jones thank you just a couple things right quickly vic congratulati

» ons on your new venture and i know you'll do well and fall in love with you like folks here have when's your last day right he knows that's right so anyway and i know we've been blessing working with each other um i got a couple things i want to say here just for the record um and i'm not trying to invest embarrass my colleague here but i um ben connell is a fine man and let me tell you what i'm talking about i've known his family all my life and when i hear some of the negative garbage the despicable you know i'm not a person who gets angry but that just really hits me the wrong way when someone is speaking about someone's family and them all because of politics ben i want to tell you congratulations and i also want to tell you that uh you're gonna make a fine house a representative member

» and i have much respect for you and your family that i've known for many years and when someone will absolutely throw in an ad what what is he a mormon or what is he how dare somebody do that and i'm sorry you had to go through that but anyway we've got a good man here and a good family and i just i just want to say that now i'm not done sammy russell's gone i'm serious about nice hill are you loud and clear okay i really mean that because i know you've talked with folks i know russell's talking with folks i know alboza i've talked with the folks you know we do all these other big big projects let's let's do something those folks i've got several things in mind that's just waiting to get through budget cycle and yeah and also of course I'm very happy about what Tom did tonight that was actu

» ally on my discussion but I don't need to discuss anymore and to mr. Snodgrass I just want to say that we haven't always gotten along we haven't always agreed hardly ever do we agree but bottom line is I do wish you the best in your move now I saw where you've already moved and you're living up there now is that correct I begin the process yes so you're not living there now I my family's there where are you living here still here I'm still I'm still transitioning and I'm a current I'm still we have a legal address here yes sir okay do you know about when something's gonna happen because I've had some people talking to me about it I said David to tell you you know you're very transparent and I know you have tell everybody what the process is but there is some interest out there you know beca

» use they saw where you had I think mentioned to your congregation where you're going that you glad to be a resident there now that your family's there i just want to make sure that we got it cleared up that you are a resident in your district yeah so i'm i'm in transition okay and i'm talking about how long that's going to be not sure thank you thank you but i wish you the best thank you mr jones if you'll just let us know when you're going to be going thank you thank you mr jones and then listen there was no ugly intent there i mean i'm just seriously i was just curious yes sir thank you thank you snot grace thank you uh just want to uh add to mr carpenter to uh your uh like i said thank you so much for what you've done to the county and uh also i want to just point out uh to mr templar i

» know we've had discussions uh about earlier about about uh where you are and just i just want to make sure everyone understands i support you uh where you are and uh thank you you for what you have you've been doing but also with Ben I think we've we're in a process and I want to I want to see I want to see where that goes so but a lot of good work tonight as we continue to get through this budget and just looking forward to a defense in process thank you thank you mr. Snodgrass mr. Gardner just like to thank my colleagues for supporting my project at Mount Pisgah I I think it could be and is going to be transformational for that community. I think you will be proud in a few years to see what we're going to do up there. So, again, I thank you. Mr. Carpenter, it's been a pleasure.

» We're going to miss you, but we still have your phone number. So we'll be in touch. But thank you for your service. Thank you, Mr. Gardner. And I will be last, but not least. Let me start off by saying that I'll appreciate each and every one of you to my right, my left, and even the ones that are not here. And because I don't always vote with you and support your ideas doesn't mean that I'm a bad person or a person that don't care. I'm passionate about what I do. I try to put a lot of thought and understanding in my votes and my decisions as I talk to the constituents throughout the county. It's not just in my area where I represent. And so when we don't agree, we don't have to be upset at one another. We can just don't agree and move on to the next item that's on the agenda.

» And I'm always willing and available to have an adult conversation outside these halls with any of you. I don't run from my vote. I don't hide from my vote. My vote is my vote, and it is who I am. A lot of good work has gotten done tonight. Roll your sleeves up. Be ready for third reading. It's going to be round two at 515 Walnut Street. So, you know, come with your ideas, come with your funding mechanisms and all that so we can move through without having any discord on how it's going to be funded, this, that, and the other. So let's do our due diligence before our next meeting on what we want to fund and how we're going to fund it. I say to all the citizens that went out to vote tonight and earlier, I congratulate you for doing your due diligence and your duty.

» that means a lot that is your civic duty and um is to get out and vote and cast who you think are the best candidates and i just want to thank all the citizens of kershaw county who's gotten out and taking care of their their duties um vic i'm tired of telling you bye that's because i want you to stay though and i know that's not possible but man do i wish you godspeed and as i always say now just make sure you got more than one bedroom where you're buying um because there'll be a few of us gathered together danny and a few others and we'll we'll come up and we'll be some of your uh slum visitors where we'll sleep in an air mattress or whatever but we'll come up to see you uh danny i want to give you a um a boost of confidence as well i can't concur more so than with uh mr snodgrass and mr

» connell um i fully believe in you and if i didn't i wouldn't have taken the vote to put you where you are um i just think there's a little bit of the process that we have to go through and you understand that you old navy man out of all people that understand that i know you understand that and um just continue to do the job you do right away you know what i mean by that right away don't get seasick on me okay and you'll be okay with that i turn to mr carpenter for administrative briefing members council i would would remind you that our summer playground program is in full swing. I encourage you to stop by if you get a chance to see these kids and see some of our great county employees out there working with them.

» As always, I encourage you to look at our public safety, look at our EMS and our fire guys that are out there. This is the dangerous time of the year at the lake and unfortunately they seem to have to respond frequently to unfortunate incidents up there. So be aware that they're out there and that they are putting their lives on the line too to ensure that our citizens are safe and protected. I wish to thank this council for the opportunity you've given me the last 11 years and I wish to thank my team.

» You guys are good but they're great and anything positive that has been accomplished in the last 11 years and not because of you or because of me because of them and the good stories that have happened are because of them so i thank them for being on a team with me and that's my report thank you mr carpenter mr dubose i'm mr chairman i don't have anything okay well we love you too with that being said there's no executive session is there a motion to adjourn so moved second all right it was made by mr gardner seconded by mr connell all in favor raise your hand and it is unanimous mr snodgrass mr gardner mr tucker mr connell and mr jones so miss mary can have this for the recording thank you